In May, in Area A of Yunyang Industrial Park, 5 kilometers east of Yunyang County, several excavators and trucks were leveling the ground on a plot of about 100 mu. Chen Keyin, a businessman from Wenzhou to Chongqing, said that "Chongqing produced" methanol gasoline will be born here as soon as November this year.
Chen Keyin's project has obtained the safety and environmental protection assessment certificate, but the most critical production and sales licensing related materials are not available. According to people familiar with the matter, most of the domestic enterprises that make methanol gasoline do so.
Chen Keyin's methanol gasoline project is not the first in Chongqing. In fact, methanol gasoline has entered the refined oil market of our city as early as 10 years ago. In the past two years, methanol gasoline production projects have also begun to appear on the list of projects in some districts and counties of our city.
According to the data, in 2009, a methanol gasoline and diesel project with an investment of 1 billion yuan and an annual output of 1 million tons was "settled" in Hechuan Industrial Park. In the same year, Chongqing Chengxin Technology Co., Ltd. announced that it would invest in the construction of a methanol gasoline and additive production line with an annual output of 500000 tons in Jiangjin Degan Industrial Park, with a total investment of more than 100 million yuan.
In 2011, Chongqing Spike Petrochemical Company said that it would build a methanol gasoline project with an annual output of 100000 tons in Tongnan Industrial Park, with a total investment of 50 million yuan.
How are these projects going now? During the interview, the reporter found that none of these projects with investment amount of tens of millions of yuan has been launched yet. An enterprise has opened an official website, and the only phone number of "Chengxin Technology" that can find the contact information has been confirmed as wrong number in the past. The reporter asked the district and county where the project is located for relevant information, but also did not get a clear reply.
Huang Zhongzhong, an investigator of the Industrial Division of the Municipal Development and Reform Commission, told the reporter that the manufacturers were secretive because China had never officially approved the methanol gasoline project, and the production and sales of methanol gasoline could only be in the "underground" state. Therefore, there have never been official statistics on the number of methanol gasoline production and sales enterprises in our city.
The state did not permit it, but it did not explicitly prohibit it, so methanol gasoline wandered in the "gray zone" of the policy. However, some provinces and cities have begun to pilot it.
Since 2001, Shanxi Province has taken the lead in starting the methanol gasoline pilot project in China. By last year, as the first methanol gasoline manufacturer in China, Shanxi Huaton had achieved a production capacity of 500000 tons.
At the end of last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organized a symposium on the pilot work of methanol vehicles, designated three enterprises including Shanghai Huapu as the production enterprises of high proportion methanol gasoline vehicles, and started the pilot work in Shanghai and Shaanxi from May this year.
Also last year, Guizhou Province, which is adjacent to Chongqing, listed Guiyang and Liupanshui as pilot areas for the promotion and use of methanol gasoline. According to the plan, from this month, the official vehicles of the "four leading groups" in Guiyang will take the lead in using methanol gasoline.
The data shows that the capacity of methanol gasoline projects under construction and planned in China is more than 8 million tons, mainly concentrated in Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Guangxi, Liaoning, Guizhou and Henan.
get both praise and blame
Although there is no "birth permit", Chen Keyin is full of confidence in his methanol gasoline project.
However, a person in charge of Fuling Refined Oil Association, surnamed Li, was not interested in this, because most of the private gas stations in Fuling used methanol gasoline before, but later stopped purchasing.
The person in charge said that he had received many complaints from users about the corrosion of methanol and gasoline engines. It is understood that multinational automakers such as General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have clearly pointed out in their user manuals that the damage caused to vehicles due to the use of methanol gasoline is not covered by the warranty.
Chen Keyin disagrees with this, saying that methanol gasoline may damage the core parts of the car, which is just a technical problem that has been overcome. In a test report issued by Chongqing Institute of Metrology and Quality Inspection in the middle of last month, he showed that the technical indicators of the product samples provided by Juli (Chen Keyin's methanol gasoline company) were significantly superior to the national standard gasoline and the national standard ethanol gasoline, reaching the European national standards, and significantly superior to the technical quality standards of methanol gasoline in the same industry in China.
This report does not make any explanation on the performance of methanol gasoline. However, the Guiyang bus company used 50 large buses and more than 150 taxis to test in October last year. The result is that the use of methanol gasoline can reduce the carbon monoxide emissions in the tail gas by about half and the hydrocarbon emissions by about 80%.
The test results of Guiyang bus company on taxis also show that the fuel cost per kilometer of a car using No. 93 ordinary gasoline is usually about 0.75 yuan, and after using methanol gasoline, the fuel cost per kilometer is about 0.55 yuan.
Some insiders said that the development of methanol gasoline is an effective way to alleviate China's oil shortage and methanol overcapacity. According to public data, China's methanol production capacity reached 35.8 million tons in 2010, but the actual output was only 15.87 million tons, less than half of the total capacity. In the same year, the national oil demand was 420 million tons, and by 2020, the annual oil demand would be 630 million tons, but the domestic oil production volume was only about 200 million tons per year.
Huang Zhongli doesn't agree with this view. He said that methanol, as a fossil energy, is also non-renewable. At present, China has learned from the United States and Brazil that it would rather spend tens of billions of subsidies on renewable ethanol fuel production every year than encourage methanol, which is meant to protect future energy security.
In addition, even though the problem of methanol gasoline damaging automobile engines has become a history in technology, there is still no authoritative statement on whether the use of methanol gasoline will cause harm to people's health.
"Formaldehyde hurts people, which is recognized, while methanol and formaldehyde are similar in chemical properties." He said that using methanol gasoline may cause harm to people in refueling, engine maintenance and other links.
Xie Chaohua, deputy of Chen Keyin, quoted the research results of the Environmental Health Group of the National Alternative Energy Leading Group, saying that through the risk assessment of toxicity, ignition, ignition and other indicators, methanol scored 28, gasoline and diesel with a score of less than 41 and 34.
"In any case, no department dares to issue a license for methanol gasoline." Huang Zhongzhong said that the debate on the safety of methanol gasoline has been going on for years, but there has been "controversy, no consensus". Although the National Standards Commission has launched and implemented a national standard of Methanol Gasoline for Vehicles (M85) at the end of 2009, until now, this national standard has only symbolic significance, because there are few cars in China that can use methanol gasoline of this grade.
Investment dividend
An industry that has never been officially licensed, and may not be formally licensed for a long time in the future, why is it so attractive to investors?
Naturally, it is high profit.
Before the methanol project was put into operation, Chen Keyin had been "circling" in the northeast of Chongqing for many years. The latest investment project was Yunyang BOPP, the product was plastic packaging paper. The investment in the first phase of the project was 200 million yuan. Since the project was put into operation for three months, it has earned more than 9 million yuan in profits.
"Methanol gasoline still needs to make money. The total investment of the project is 180 million yuan, and the cost can be recovered in one year, and the annual output value can reach 2.85 billion yuan." Chen Keyin said, taking No. 93 gasoline as an example, the current wholesale price is 9823 yuan per ton, and the retail price is 10123 yuan. The price of methanol is 3250 yuan per ton, and the price of blending agent is 14800 yuan per ton.
According to the predetermined product plan of the project, that is, the proportion of gasoline, methanol and blending agent is 65:30:5. The cost of gasoline required per ton of methanol gasoline produced is 6384.95 yuan, the cost of methanol is 975 yuan, and the cost of additives is 740 yuan. With the estimated management costs, transportation costs, wage costs and related taxes calculated according to 6% of the industry practice, the cost of non-raw materials per ton is about 750 yuan.
The comprehensive cost of producing one ton of methanol gasoline is about 8850 yuan per ton. At the wholesale price of No. 93 gasoline, the profit per ton is up to 968.95 yuan; If sold at the retail price, the profit would be as high as 1268.95 yuan. If we consider the reasons for market promotion, 0.5 yuan is cheaper per liter of oil, and there is still a profit of nearly 600 yuan per ton of methanol gasoline sold.
Chen Keyin's methanol gasoline project is designed to have an annual capacity of 300000 tons. That is to say, he only needs to earn 600 yuan per ton, and can indeed return his capital within one year. Of course, this has to be based on the premise that all of his methanol gasoline projects can reach production and all of his products can be sold.
Depends on "two males"
The official opinion of Yunyang is "cautiously optimistic" about Chen Keyin's methanol gasoline project to be put into operation.
The official optimism comes from the fact that the annual output value of the project is nearly 3 billion yuan, while the investment is less than 200 million yuan. It covers an area of more than 100 mu, has no pollution, and contains patented technology, which is in line with the industrial positioning under the background of land scarcity in the reservoir area.
The official caution comes from the industry's difficulty in forming an industrial chain and its limited role in driving the industry. It is reported that at present, Yunyang has planned three ten-billion-level industrial chains, including methanol gasoline.
In fact, the fundamental reason why methanol gasoline can't be reflected in the "chessboard" of industrial development in Yunyang is that the industry is still difficult to be independent at present. It needs to rely on the upstream raw materials of PetroChina and Sinopec, and the downstream sales must also rely on their large-scale fuel outlets.
"As a dependent industry, we will not have high hopes for the time being, but will try our best to support it." A major leader of Yunyang County said that if Chen Keyin's methanol gasoline has good performance and reasonable price, he will consider mobilizing the use of official cars in the county to promote the promotion. However, the annual gasoline consumption in Yunyang is only 50000 tons. To survive and make money, Chen Keyin's methanol gasoline project obviously cannot rely solely on the support of Yunyang County.
For methanol and gasoline projects launched in non-pilot provinces and cities, the real difficulty lies in the terminal. That is to say, even if we can get enough gasoline as the main raw material for production, under the reality that the retail outlets of gasoline are almost completely controlled by PetroChina and Sinopec, whether the methanol gasoline business can succeed "first and first" depends on the face of people. But at present, the "face" is not good-looking.
In September last year, Wang Tianpu, the president of Sinopec, made it clear to the media that methanol gasoline is not necessary to be popularized at present because of the technical problems of methanol gasoline. An insider, who did not want to be named, believed that such a statement was normal, because it was almost impossible for a super-large state-owned enterprise such as Sinopec to take policy risks to do "product innovation".
A person in charge of the National Alcoholic Ether Fuel and Alcoholic Ether Clean Automobile Professional Committee believes that the supply and sales of gasoline in oil companies are in balance at present. Once methanol gasoline enters, there will be problems in the storage and sales of ordinary gasoline, and the industrial chain of oil companies will be greatly affected.
Chen Keyin said that he had made a good start in terminal sales. After he made the commitment of "halving the sales profit", PetroChina has intended to lease him three gas stations, one oil tank and one gas dispenser in the Yunyang Business Department Park, Fengming and Qixia Tongxin.
As of the end of the interview, the reporter could not see any lease contract related to this.