Review of 2015 China Gas Industry Development Summit Forum
发布日期：2016/05/13 来源：中国气协 本站有
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The 25th Membership Reprehensive Conference & 2015 Annual Conference for CIGIA was successfully held in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province on October 21-23, 2015.
“2015 China Gas Industry Development Summit Forum” was held on October 21-22, in which the national industry well-known experts and nation-renowned business leaders offered advice and suggestions for the gas industry development.
1 Development
1.1 Difficulties and opportunities for the industrial gases industry
Mr. SHENG Zhongke (President of Shanghai Baosteel Gas Co., Ltd.) presented the profound analysis of current gas industry situations and gave some valuable suggestions for gas industry companies how to think creatively and bring forth new development ideas.
1.1.1 Five current changes for concern of the gas industry development
1.1.1.1 Oversupply of liquid products in most parts of China
In Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu), the most economically developed area China, covering about 200,000 square kilometers of land, there are about 30,000 tons of liquid products in total everyday from gas companies and those companies regarding liquid industrial gases as by-products, and these products are sold. If statistics is performed in accordance with the liquid density per square kilometer of land, the density of liquid products may also be the highest in the world, and such case may also show the developed degree of the economy development of China Yangtze River Delta from a different perspective.
Under the over-all situation of adjustment and transfer of China industrial economy distribution, the density of liquid products may be up to the limit state in this region, and such supply and demand situations are very similar for Pearl River Delta region and Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan region. If other companies still establish air separation plants to supply liquid products in this region, various issues may occur and these plants may finally not be put into operation or great challenges may also exist in cost even though these plants were put into operation.
1.1.1.2 Transparent liquid and pipeline gas supply mode
Since those transnational gas corporations entered China market about 20 years ago, China client-side companies already fully knew the field gas supply mode, the game of suppliers and buyers and the requirement for return from investors are very transparent. Moreover, many client-side companies also continue to innovate the purchasing bulk pipeline gas mode; and the payment of buyers according to the leasing industry mode is one new mode. Quite a few industrial gas companies operate air separation plants for supply of pipeline gas so that there may be no profit; that is to say, such case shall be due to no-being in place for pipeline gases and liquid products (namely fixed return and variable return). No profit for operation of an air separation plant may bring about a significant negative impact on an industrial gas company; in addition, operation of additional 10 air separation plants would also be difficult to rescue and balance the overall return status.
1.1.1.3 Relatively large shares for transnational corporations in China market
Transnational corporations have profited from the rapid development of China economy and advantages of capital, technologies and commercial modes over the past two decades so that their development may be very good; on the other hand, China industrial gas business modes also were driven much. Transnational gas corporations contribute a great share in the fact that the third-party gas supply mode may be received by most companies. Nowadays, they are ahead in both the market share and products, and they show an increasingly monopolistic posture in some national markets and industrial parks. The industrial gas industry is a first come, first served, closed and self-fettered industry so that the later ones might be very difficult to catch up with them without innovation.
1.1.1.4 Slowing down the national economic growth rate
China economy may fully manifest a very significant slowdown sign since last year to nowadays or even several years later. On the other hand, the growth of the industrial gas output is closely related to that of the whole national GDP. Thus, while there is any change for the growth of the whole national economy, our gas industry shall also be influenced significantly.
1.1.1.5 Influence of Tianjin event
Tianjin Event and some malignant safety events occurring recently in dangerous chemicals companies give rise to the state attaching great importance to safety management of dangerous chemicals companies; on the other hand, the overcorrecting situations also occur in several regions. Tianjin event is a safety fuse, and a very high requirement is put forward currently to environment and safety all over China. The influence of such high requirement may last for five years or even much long time. The industrial gas industry is a dangerous chemicals industry. If we had been not investing enough in safety and environmental protection, we would be out. Whereas, if profits are not enough, there shall be no enough investment for safety and environmental protection so that we may be out.
Only if those companies have profits, they may sequentially focus environment and safety; otherwise, if they have no profit, the best safety management system would also fall down. The national safety and environmental protection requirements are becoming more and more rigorous and it is a test for industrial gas business. The government requirements may be met, at the same time, our business may be promoted. We shall do a lot of work, of course, the development shall be also complementary.
1.1.1.6 Future 10 years – the integrating time for China gas industry
China gas industry will face strong impact for integration and centralization in future 5-10 years. Integration and centralization shall be necessary so far under China economy background for development of this industry. Such trend is very clear in Europe, America, Japan or Korea. Currently, most China gas companies are low profits and low efficiency so that the background conditions may objectively be ready for integration and centralization. Some industrial gas companies paid costs during their investment processed and these faults in investment or technology may also promote integration and centralization of China gas industry to some extent. It is actually a centralization process. The present more than 2000 gas companies will be greatly lowered.
1.1.2 Some points for development of current gas companies
1.1.2.1 Continual development ability
The continual development ability and complete product lines shall be very significant for an industrial gas company after establishment of its basic plant. The onsite gas supply is actually to establish core resources for an industrial gas company, and it may derive many other contributions except for supply of pipeline gases to customers. Once its output is usually determined for the general manufacturing industry, this company will grow very difficultly in the future development processes (for example: its yearly sales volume and profit are assumed to be RMB 100,000,000 Yuan and RMB 20,000,000 Yuan, respectively); moreover, profits may usually be lowered along with intensifying competition. As for an industrial gas company, there may usually be many different development opportunities after establishment of a plant in some certain place. After an air separation plant has been established, various downstream gas products may be developed and the product profundity may also be continuously enhanced. Then, further development is carried out in this area to form regional products and the supply system; and the market may be relatively controlled. Thus, a continuous growth process may occur in this area.
1.1.2.2 Leasing mode
The industrial gas industry is an industry depending on the capital investment. If a company wants continual development, profits only from one project are not enough. Insufficient funds may lead to its struggling for continual development. Thus, operation of a gas company depends on development of continual projects development and continuous optimization. The project development and central control mode now looks like a very effective competition mode. Good projects or contracts shall be put into operation bus using the leasing mode so as to greatly lower payment funds of gas companies; thus, the possibility of investment return may be improved.
1.1.2.3 Partial performance of the whole value chain mode or transformation
Those transnational corporations usually go in for production, distribution and supply products to terminal customers except for being good at relatively complete product lines, and such mode is also called as the whole value chain mode.
The whole value chain mode is to provide a promotion space for each value chain so that the whole value chain may be performed and many spreading effect may occur. On the other hand, many different challenges may exist in the future development, especially in China market. China companies compete against transnational corporations in cost and quality in many areas and provide better services.
By taking hydrogen as an example, a few companies develops the solid hydrogen storage technology in the intermediate distribution link; and its costs may seemingly be saved by 10%, 20%, 30% or 40% in comparison with those for the high pressure long pipeline distribution mode; by assuming actually its costs being saved by 30-40%, we may save RMB 0.2-0.3 Yuan for hydrogen per 100 kilometers; thus, such link shall be very valuable.
However, it may be very professional this time. While you want to go in for the whole product value chain, your company may feel being unable to do what you want very much to do. Of course, there may be different considerations for many different products, which may correspond to performance of each value segment. Profits and benefits to customers shall be gained together.
1.1.2.4 Mixed economy providing opportunities for the future
In addition, we see a great opportunity, namely the mixed economy system being promoted in China. Baosteel is a large state-owned enterprise companies so as to feel the advantages and system competition disadvantages of the large state-owned companies. Those things to be done by transnational corporations in China may be convenient and hard. The vitality and advantages of China private and joint-stock enterprises may fully be complementary to those of state-owned enterprises.
A centralization and integration process will appear in the future and China will promote the mixed economy mode to gain many integration opportunities which may bring about many different items in technology or capital. We shall relatively further consider these things to find many valuable intersections.
1.2 Current development situations and trends of China electric gases
Mr. LIU Bin from Suzhou JinHong Gas Co., Ltd. introduced representative electric gases such as super purity ammonia, silanes, nitrous oxide, fluoride electric gas and high purity chlorine for manufacturing semiconductors. Mr. LIU Bin said: electric gases shall almost be used in each link from growth of chips to device encapsulation in the semiconductor producing processes and performances of semiconductor devices are dependent to a great extent on quality of electric gases. Semiconductor processing processes include epitaxial, film formation, doping, etching, cleaning, encapsulation and other procedures and more than 30 kinds of high purity electric and mixed gases such as ammonia, silanes and mixed gases, N2(6N), H2(6N), phosphorane, arsenious hydride, boron trichloride , trifluoromethane and so on. Development of the special electric gas industry grows together with development of the semiconductor industry. The international semiconductor market was surging in 2015 and merging cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars emerged one after another so that the semiconductor industry is dominant in the global commercial region after the telecommunication, media, pharmacy and banking and other industries. China issued the “National Integrated Circuit Industry Development Promotion Plan” in 2014 to actively face the global competition for the panel display, memory chip and other industries and control the future development commanding points. China SUMMITVIEW CAPITAL invested about USD 700,000,000 dollars to purchase America DRAM Plant ISSI (Integrated Silicon Solution chip finished semiconductors) in July 2015, and such case indicates that our semiconductor industry makes a great stride; thus, a spring will also come for development of electric gases.
Mr. LIU Bin thought that China electric gas market required a quantitative breakthrough development within rapid time; although we took advantages to supply some domestic products, most of high-end products were still challenging for our industry. Under the flagging economy environment, most gas products were floundering so that gas companies was operated very difficultly and many related enterprises turned back to the electric gas field; and the significant trends were shown for such case in view of the quantities of attendant companies and number of preventatives attending the national special gas annual meeting. On the other hand, many companies entered the electric gas field without consideration of safety costs and steady quality; and a series of vicious circles would occur soon just like those going in for bulk gases currently; furthermore, such situation would be reflected more soon under the catalytic effect of the slowing down economy. As for how our being ready in the booming chance for the electric gas field, we need to do much more subjects. How our calming down to carefully carry out accumulations of optimization of plant processes, stabilizing the gas quality, handling the packaging containers, supporting product analysis methods, supporting logistics, even formulation of related standards and so on, selection of products matching the company capacity, performance of the market investigation, rather than blind investment and triggering any bad market competition shall be what to seriously deal with for us.
1.3 Taking part in haze management actions
Mr. XU Yongsheng (Executive Deputy General Manager of Zhangjiagang CIMC SANCTUM Cryogenic Equipment Co., Ltd.) introduced its profile and the national energy and environment policies (national and local haze management polices and interpretation), and AJT products.
Mr. XU Yongsheng said that AJT is a small innovative gas storage platform, which was specially designed for the industry, laboratories, medical and LNG fuel system and other fields to supply the convenient distribution and application mode; moreover, it is relatively more effective and economical, and safer in comparison with other cryogenic containers. AJT lets users feel rapid transfer field gases; application of AJT shall be free of frequent replacement of steel cylinders; thus, there may be no any injury from operating steel cylinders, or rubbing, wastes and man handling costs from replacement of steel cylinders and so on. AJT takes advantages of the advanced and efficient supply gas design, longer gas supply time, slower self-pressurization rate, larger gas supply volume and more rapid pressurization rate. Its effective thermal insulation structure leads to extremely low liquid loss or no liquid loss within a period of time. Mr. XU Yongsheng specially told they completed the heating performance transformation of 237 coal-fired boilers (<2 tons) in Sanhe City by December 2014. The AJT LNG cryogenic gas supply station from Zhangjiagang CIMC SANCTUM Cryogenic Equipment Co., Ltd. as a member of CIMC ENRIC companies solved the partial pipeline natural gas being not ready and the supply gas issue for small coal to gas users.
1.4 Current development situations and trends of China rare gases
Mr. LI Jun from Han-Steel of Hebei Iron & Steel Group introduced types, applications, current development situations and future perspectives of China rare gases, Han-Steel 2015 rare gases production and sales situations, and the development plan of Han-Steel rare gases and special gases and so on. Mr. LI Jun thought:
1) Currently, domestic neon consumption is not large and national neon products are primarily exported to America, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and other countries and regions. In view of the world, the neon market is still in short supply in a short period along with rapid development of the electric and semiconductor industries and the influence of the global local wars, and the neon consumption is basically stable. At the same time, adjustment of structures of the electric industry and the intelligent manufacturing industry and so on will face good development opportunities along with issuance of the “13th Five Year National Plan”, and the neon consumption will gradually grows in China.
2) In view of the market terminal procurement, the helium consumption is slightly lowered in the photovoltaic industry and as the protective gas; on the other hand, the helium consumption growth manifests in the electric industry, fiber manufacturing, cryogenic superconductors, NMR equipment and other fields. The short-term market will be fluctuated slightly by influence of repairing of the upstream companies and the import volume.
3) In recent years, LED lights being popular and promoted resulted in gradually lowering the market shares of halogen lamps and fluorescent lamps so that the krypton gas consumption may be lowered slightly in the lighting, electric lights and other fields and the market demand may be weak; at the same time, the krypton gas export trade is too general to support the market demand.
4) Along with the xenon market price and being gradually lowered and tending to be stable, the traditional xenon electric light consumption is gradually starting, and the market bargain situations may be improved slightly; on the other hand, the market demand may not be improved obviously under the influence of the soft national overall economy environment.
Mr. LI Jun predicted the rapid yearly growth rate of 25% would have been achieved for China demand rare gases in the next 5 years, so that the development of the rare gas industry may be promoted and stimulated and the sales price and profits will be lowered greatly. In addition, they may be fluctuated slightly within a short period and the price may gradually manifest the lowering trend.
2 Perspectives
2.1 Investment chance and capital operating modes for development of the LNG industry
Mr. WANG Biao (the executive director of Zhongrong Jinhui Investment Management Co., Ltd.) introduced current development situations of China natural gas industry, the investment chances and capital operating modes for development of the LNG industry.
Mr. WANG Biao introduced investment chances in the upstream of the LNG industry chain and required companies shall pay close attention to production and development of domestic small moveable LNG production equipment, social capital for construction of LNG receiving stations and development of overseas LNG sources, and LNG peak-shaving plants in national second and third class cities. On the other hand, the investment chances in the midstream of the LNG industry chain primarily include: high-tech companies going in for LNG equipment production (due to China LNG equipment production being seriously homogenized, low threshold and intensified competition; and the capital being closely near the industry updating of the equipment production companies), as well as LNG logistics transportation (Mr. WANG Biao thought: the railway and marine LNG transportation mode would break through the traditional LNG logistics transportation mode in the future to update the traditional LNG logistics mode based on trucks. The new LNG logistics transportation mode will bring new business chances for those equipment companies for manufacturing special railway LNG tank containers, small LNG tankers and so on).
As for the investment chances in the downstream of the LNG industry chain, Mr. WANG Biao said: a series of national polices were issued to greatly support development of inland LNG filling business. The urban peak-shaving tanks as the significant urban infrastructure to be encouraged and built by the national governments will be under relative great development in a few years, but its development speed would be limited without good commercial operation mode; and small LNG vaporizing stations would be a significant method for popularizing natural gas in China in the future; and the correspondingly derivative industrial and civil LNG distribution energy base stations and small LNG supply moveable terminals and so on would be concerned.
2.2 China LNG market and perspectives
Mr. JIANG Chunhui, as a expert of CIGIA, primarily reported the global natural gas and China LNG, analysis of China LNG market and China energy policies, LNG market perspectives and so on. As for analysis of China LNG market, Mr. JIANG Chunhui pointed out: CNPC/PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinopec released collective force to sign long-term LNG supply agreements from 2008 to 2014, which are up to 38,400,000 tons/year in total. (CNPC/PetroChina and ConocoPhillips signed the AP LNG agreement in 2012 for supply LNG of 7,600,000 tons/year in total; CNOOC and BG successively signed QCLNG and resource pool supply agreements in 2010 and 2013 for supply LNG of 8,600,000 tons/year in total; Sinopec and Exxonmobil and Shell signed higher Australia LNG contracts, respectively, for supply LNG of 4,250,000 tons/year in total. And most of these agreements will be performed in 2015-2017.) The result was suffering Chinese people so that the LNG industry got finally into trouble currently and the fleeting strategic development period may be lost. The diesel oil consumption was lowered by leaps and bounds or even the negative growth rate may occur due to slowdown of China economy. It is predicted the future growth rate will be about 2% and the growth rate of the diesel oil consumption will be only 50% of that of gasoline. There has been no economic benefit for alternative fuel since 2014 due to extremely difference between LNG and diesel oil so that the demand might stagnates. The global natural gas accounts for approximately 24% of primary energy; on the other hand, China natural gas accounts for only 5.8% of primary energy. China natural gas facilities are not complete and the regulations, rules and standards are not perfect. The transmission of prices is distorted due to the government intervention to cause the flagging market.
Mr. JIANG Chunhui questioned some practices of National Development and Reform Commission: 1) Being short of strategic thinking and limited to long-term LNG supply agreements for CNPC/PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinopec, there being no desire to advance further and losing the strategic development initiative; 2) Faulty logic judgment and the electricity, as secondary energy, being defined as new energy for popularization; yet they don't know how the green secondary energy comes from without the primary energy? 3) Actions are always slow in face of the drastically changing market and lagged behind the market so as to greatly hurt the LNG industry.
Mr. JIANG Chunhui emphasized that the energy revolution shall be to free of carbon and broad application of natural gas shall be an insurmountable barrier and the only way to the low-carbon economy; and the energy revolution shall be to free of low efficiency energy; and the energy consumption and management efficiency shall be all focused.
Mr. JIANG Chunhui specially put forward the following suggestions as for China energy structure, namely lowering coal consumption, stabilizing oil supply, improving gas applications and promoting green energy application.
1) Lowering coal consumption: the coal consumption rate will be lowered to 62% in 2020 from 77% in 2012; 2) Stabilizing oil supply: the degree of external dependence will have been up to 67% in 2020 and 70% (peak) in 2030; and then the yearly oil output will have been up to about 220,000,000 tons and the yearly petroleum refinery distillation capacity will have been up to 700,000,000 tons. 3) Improving gas applications: the natural gas output was 183,000,000,000 cubic meters in 2014; the natural gas output will have been up to 330,000,000,000 cubic meters in 2020, 600,000,000,000 cubic meters in 2030 and 700,000,000,000 cubic meters in 2050, respectively; 4) Promoting green energy application: green renewable energy shall be the development direction later and the development from low-carbon to being free of carbon shall be the necessary trend; and only the circular economy may ensure the continual development.
2.3 Price trend of the first three quarters of 2015 and market perspective
Ms. SUN Haixia (the General Manager Assistant Shandong SCI99 Group Co., Ltd.) introduced the supply changes of industrial gases, analysis of industrial gas market prices for the first three quarters of 2015 and the industrial gas market perspectives. Ms. SUN Haixia said: the capacity of China air separation plants were up to 19,485,700 Nm3/h in 2015, whose growth rate is 6.29% (for relative large plants for production of liquid products). Air separation plants are still centralized in North and East China. The equipment operating rate for the first three quarters of 2015 is 63.78%, which is lowered by 6.78% than that for the corresponding period of 2014. The peak equipment operating rate occurs in June and is up to 66%; and the minimum equipment operating rate occurs in February which is lowered to about 60%. The liquid outputs were rising greatly in 2015: China liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen and liquid argon outputs were about 23,210,000 tons (including liquid oxygen: 11,670,000 tons, liquid nitrogen: 8,260,000 tons and liquid argon 3,280,000 tons) in 2015, whose growth rate is 10.1%. The air separation plant operating rate is still in the low level along with the related flagging industries and the relative growth rate of liquid outputs slows down. Based on the SCI99 estimations, it is predicted that the total of liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen and liquid argon outputs may be about 15,080,000 tons in 2015, which is lowered by 4.13% than that of 2014. The actual output for the first three quarters was 11,100,000 tons (including liquid oxygen: 5,100,000 tons, liquid nitrogen: 4,300,000 tons and liquid argon: 1,700,000 tons).
Ms. SUN Haixia specially predicted the industrial gas market: the growth rate of air separation plants will be apparent in following 3 years; and it is predicted the output of air separation plants will have been up to 30,000,000 Nm3/h in 2018, which grows by 36% than that in 2014. On the other hand, the actual growth rate will be lowered due to those influencing factors such as economy pressure, some projects being or to be cancelled or suspended. Most investments are still focused in the coal chemical and petrochemical industries. Outsourcing will be gradually intensified and professional gas companies will be gradually dominant. Steel growth rate slows down and the market will be free of vitality. The coal chemical industry will still under stable development.
OECD predicts the global economy growth rates will be 3.3% in 2015 and 3.7% in 2016 and the growth is continually at the low level. GDPs of its 34 member countries will be up to 2.3% in 2015 and 2.6% in 2016; America economy will turn the good trend, whose GDP growth rates will be up to 2.2% in 2016 and 3.1% in 2017. It is predicted that China economy growth rate will slow down in 2016, which will be 6.9%.
Domestically, although the effects of the early investment of RMB 7,000,000,000,000 Yuan and the future “One Belt and One Road” and other polices are inferior to those in 2008, they shall be beneficial to economy recovery in the long run and many investment projects will also indirectly drive the gas industry.
2.4 Analysis of technology progress and promotion of gas industry development
Mr. FANG Hua (the General Manager of Shanghai HuaAi Chromatographic Analysis Technology Co., Ltd.) introduced chromatographic instruments for air separation plants, electric industrial gases plants, standard gas plants, filling stations for cryogenic liquid tankers, special gas laboratories, aerospace, photovoltaic industry, power industry and coal chemical industry; for example: there being several detection modes: laboratory chromatographic instruments, portable chromatographic instruments, and online chromatographic instruments. Several detector applications: GC-9560 laboratory chromatographic instruments, GC-9760 portable chromatographic instruments, HA-9660 online chromatographic instruments, and 6 major features of HA-9660 online chromatographic instruments and so on.
2.5 New change trends of gas standards for the food industry
Mr. PU Chungan introduced the new change trends of gas standards for the food industry currently, such as 1) Food additive CO2; 2) Food additive H2; 3) Food additive N2; and 4) Requirements for those companies for production and filling of food additives and so on.
For example, in comparison “National Food Safety Standard - Food Additive - Carbon Dioxide” (Exposure Draft) with GB 10621- 2006 “Food Additive - Liquid Carbon Dioxide”, the primary changes are listed as follows: revision of the standard name; adding index requirements and test methods of solid and gas carbon dioxide; deletion of index requirements and test methods of acidity, ethanol, other oxy-organics and hydrogen phosphide; adding the index requirements and test method of ethylene oxide; revision of the index names of hydrocarbons; revision of test methods of sulfur dioxide, total sulfur, benzene, methanol, acetaldehyde, vinyl chloride, grease and evaporation residue; adding the capacitance test method for moisture and so on.
2.6 Current situations and trends of renewable energy hydrogen production and energy storage & conversion
Mr. ZHANG Bihang from Suzhou Jingli Hydrogen Production Equipment Co., Ltd. reported in detail general development situations of China renewable energy and the statuses of abandoning wind power, photoelectricity and hydroelectric power, general situations of overseas renewable energy hydrogen production, energy storage and conversion, general development and utilization situations of China hydrogen energy, the primary modes of renewable energy hydrogen production, energy storage and conversion, analysis of the efficiency of renewable energy hydrogen production, energy storage and conversion, prospects of renewable energy hydrogen production, energy storage and conversion and so on.
As for Analysis of the “Efficiency of Renewable Energy Hydrogen Production, Energy Storage and Conversion”, Mr. Zhang Bihang said: currently, China renewable energy hydrogen production and energy storage conversion efficiency is being enhanced greatly, and the hydrogen production energy efficiency may be up to more than 80%; and there are a few conversion modes such as electric power generation, combustion and fuel cells. The current technology level situations of hydrogen production equipment: upsizing, low cost, high efficiency, broad adaptability, automation, pressurization storage. The output of a single hydrogen production equipment (Suzhou Jingli) is maximum all over the world, which may be up to 1000 Nm³/h. Currently, the maximum output of foreign hydrogen production equipment is 750 Nm³/h, and the maximum output of a hydrogen production equipment from other China companies is 600 Nm³/h. The maximum unit current density of a hydrogen production equipment (Suzhou Jingli) is up to 4500A/m²; and the maximum unit current density of foreign hydrogen production equipment is currently 2000A/m². Suzhou Jingli hydrogen production equipment takes advantages of small volume (about 50% of that of the original equipment) and low weight; in addition, its manufacturing costs are lowered relatively greatly.
As for the development prospects of renewable energy hydrogen production and energy storage conversion, Mr. ZHANG Bihang thought: the hydrogen production energy storage is superior to other energy storage methods, which shall be the significant method for performance of renewable energy accounting for 20% by 2020. Hydrogen is a clean energy and free of emission, and development of hydrogen energy shall be not only a significant method for performance of renewable energy accounting for 20% by 2020, but also an effective method for solution of imbalance energy distribution among West, Middle and East China. Hydrogen may be generated with wind power, photoelectricity, and hydroelectric power and so on and then transferred through pipelines or other modes; thus, hydrogen energy may be broadly used.
Mr. ZHANG Bihang thought that development of hydrogen energy shall be guided by the national policies and in cooperation by the upstream, medium-stream and downstream parties. Thus, Mr. ZHANG Bihang suggested: 1) Those hydrogen production energy storage projects supported by wind power, photoelectricity and hydroelectric power shall be awarded with policy subsidies just like that for construction of the supporting charging stations for electric vehicles; 2) Subsidies shall be given to those wind fields and photovoltaic power stations utilizing waste wind and solar energy, and electric power generation for hydrogen production just like those for gridding wind or solar power; 3) The enthusiasm of the power grid shall be fully aroused and the power grid shall buy waste wind, solar and hydroelectric power. By using the power grid as “shuttle service”, hydrogen production plants shall be established near those application places to save the power transmission costs; 4) By combining with CNOOC and Sinopec, natural gas pipelines are used to transportation; 5) More hydrogen energy utilization channels shall be developed to quicken promotion of the fuel cell technology and let hydrogen fuel cell vehicles be better put into operation; 6) By combining establishment of miniature power grids, the new distributed hydrogen production energy storage power supply mode shall be created; 7) Standards, rules and other necessary safety conditions shall be solved to let the common people dare use and want to use power. Hydrogen power is an indispensable part in life ultimately.
2.7 Characteristics and trends of “Internet +” development of the gas industry
Mr. LIU Weiwei (Chairman of the Gas Network) presented analysis of 7 major characteristics of gas industry and “Internet +” and gas industry development “Internet +”, 5 trends of gas industry development “Internet +”, and 4 changes of “Internet +” to the industrial gas industry and so on.
Mr. LIU Weiwei thought: the industrial gas industry and Internet are relevant closely even they have a long relationship each other; as for early innovations and inventions in those professional fields or some late introduced automation applications, as well as some positive trials of Internet performed currently by many companies, all of those are the embodiment of cooperation between industrial gas industry and Internet.
7 major characteristics of the industrial gas industry development “Internet +” include the star-studded natural network characteristic of various industrial gas companies, the natural barrier characteristic of complete certificates, the natural distribution characteristic of logistics facilities, natural network sales possibility of complete product standards, the latecoming advantages of the informatization intelligent level, alternation of the business mode due to managers facing inheritance of “generation overlapping”, and serious disproportionation of financial innovation consciousness and the industry economy scale. Such 7 major characteristics are determined not only by the properties of industrial gas industry but also the time progress and Internet impact, and these factors bespeak base of natural development “Internet +” for the industrial gas industry.
Mr. LIU Weiwei put forward 5 trends of the gas industry development “Internet +”, namely: 1)The industry association will form the genuine O2O pattern (from offline to online, grafting the network technology and remodeling the industry mode); 2) The industry profit mode will be reformed to form a clear value creation chain, directly contact those online branches from resources to customers, and gradually transit those offline platforms to only services such as distribution, packaging and logistics, and customer site services, and share more types of market opportunities to be created in platforms; 3) More hi-tech means will be ready at lower costs for the industry, such as application of bar codes or electronic labels for management of gas cylinders, and there will be more mechanization and intelligent means. Moreover, he even predicted that there will be a lot of robots for gas operation. There will be lower cost high-tech means such as client terminal remote dialogue, industry centralized control platform and sharing big data value in the gas industry; 4) High integration of industry resources and substantial reduction in duplication of investment will be realized and Gas Network may provide a platform for everyone to share technical knowledge and resources, even management methods and management modes; 5) Based on oriented people and the trend of the times, the industrial gas industry development “Internet +” must be a major breakthrough in next 18 months through joint efforts of all people in the industry.
Mr. LIU Weiwei said we must be brave to carry out trials if you wanted to success; Gas Network will carry out 4 trials:
1) In view of the difficult settlement issue in the industrial gas industry, Gas Network will issue “Gas Network Gas Tickets” to help those companies to collect receivables. If any receivable is not yet paid to its account within the prescribed period, the payment will be made by Gas Network. Gas Network will use contracts and customers treasuring the reputation to remodel the industry trade mode. The key point for performance of such case is to connect those professional Internet financial institutions and the industry trades through the network platform;
2) In view of logistics issues for the industrial gas industry, Gas Network will rational allocate logistics resources on the shelf for companies and optimize logistics through optimization of routes, distribution contents and control means, and this will be “Gas Network Gas Logistics”;
3) Gas Network may bring planning and foresight to the industry through informatization means and the platform effect, seek resources based on the group buying means, provide the production and operation prediction for resource suppliers by predicting orders and big data method, and bring the high planning through sharing data for form the prescient group buying orders; and this will be “Gas Network Gas Quantity”;
4) Gas Network as an “Internet +”platform will bring the industry not only conveniences which can be seen not only unity but resource sharing within the industry so that the industry may form a close group. Those industry companies may embrace the Internet through the complementary advantages to form an alliance; and this will be “Gas Network Gas Group”;
“Gas Network Gas Tickets”, “Gas Network Gas Logistics”, “Gas Network Gas Quantity” and “Gas Network Gas Group” shall correspond to settlement, logistics, operation prediction, value investment subdivision, and these trials of development “Internet +” will be carried out by Gas Network for the industrial gas industry.
2.8 Lean gas distribution management
Mr. REN Jie (Sales Director of Quantum Asia Solutions Limited) introduced development achievements and issues of China logistics field, and industrial gas distribution characteristics. Mr. REN Jie described in detail the high quality services & cost control challenges, the typical business processes, points for improvement of information technology, orders & distribution services, forecasting orders (automatic calculation of future consumption for customers according to the safety liquid level, shipping records and other information), mapping distribution of loads (vehicle real-time status, customer information, map location, route preview, availability of resource locations, and application of real-time data to help scheduling personnel to arrange orders) and so on.
2.9 Large volume gas cylinders for storage of industrial and electric gases
Mr. ZHAO Jingmao (the secretary general of the gas filling station branch of CIGIA) introduced those primary equipment products (seamless steel cylinders, fixed storage vessels/banks, integrated pipes/semitrailers) for storage and transportation of industrial gases, industrial gas products (integrated pipes, semitrailers, storage and transportation equipments for high pressure hydrogen refueling stations, cryogenic industrial gas storage and transportation equipment (cryogenic liquid tanks, cryogenic liquid transport vehicles, cryogenic freezers), cryogenic liquid transportation equipment, cryogenic freezers (small industrial cryogenic liquid supply stations (small gas storage platforms for welding, cutting, hospitals and other industrial gas application units, being more reliable, effective and economical than application of gas cylinders; filling media: liquid argon, liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen)) electric industrial gas storage and transportation equipment and gas cylinder containers and so on from ShiJiazhuang Enric Gas Machinery Co., Ltd. (this company supplied 45MPa moveable hydrogen refueling vehicles and hydrogen storage group-cylinders for 2010 Shanghai Expo, 45MPa moveable hydrogen refueling vehicles for 2011 Shenzhen Universiade, and 45MPa hydrogen group-cylinders for a hydrogen refueling station in Zhengzhou in 2015). Distribution of media by using moveable filling vehicles may prevent consumption of time and manpower waste for replacement of gas cylinders to gain significant economic benefits.
3 Safety
3.1 Analysis of typical accidents for air separation plants
Mr. MA Dafang (Vice Chairman of China Gas Safety Technology Committee) presented detailed analysis of typical accidents of air separation plants. He introduced “Specification of Emergency Disposal of Air Separation Plant Explosion Accidents” (CIGIA Standard) in detail. Mr. MA Dafang said: each air separation plant includes moving equipment and static equipment. An air separation plant primarily refer to those static devices inside and surrounding the cold box, other air turbine compressors, oxygen turbine compressors, compressors, electric appliances and so on, which are called as one assembly equipment. An air separation plant shall be a large scope including moving and static, electrical and medical devices, and computers. On the other hand, our air separation plant is only limited inside or surrounding its cold box.
Explosion accidents include chemical blasting and physical explosions. The former refers to there being chemical reactions, instantaneous and powerful self chain reaction; on the other hand, the latter has no chemical reaction, and it is a explosion for which the gas pressure of a container pipeline is more than the curvature or intensity limit of the container pipeline material; moreover, it does not occur instantaneously but it shall be a process. Thus, it is called as physical blasting or explosion. The typical difference lies in there being a chemical reaction or not.
Air separation plants face such two types of explosion; thus, we require enough cooling in “Specification of Emergency Disposal of Air Separation Plant Explosion Accidents” (CIGIA Standard) for prevention of air separation plant blasting and liquid pipeline gas blasting. Physical blasting is due to rupture of any pipeline inside air separation plant cold box.
There exist many chemical blasting particularly in chemical companies, and hydrogen blasting is named for air separation plants due to there being hydrogen. In addition, leakage oil and gas from air separation plants and oxygen are mixed for explosion. Except for physical explosions, there are relative much liquid products for air separation plants in some chemical companies; liquid nitrogen leakage may result in relative high operating temperature particularly in the early starting period; what is worse, the whole air separation plant may basically collapsed. There are many such accidents and the lesion shall be very grave.
“Specification of Emergency Disposal of Air Separation Plant Explosion Accidents” (CIGIA Standard) may be utilized to find causes and prevention countermeasures. In addition, design (including the plant manufacturing design to the field erection design) is the early stage; and any design issue shall be a congenital defect. Moreover, more attentions shall be paid to construction; especially, supervision shall be carried out. A good design shall be put into practice through construction supervision. Furthermore, the perfect safety management shall be performed. They are a system project.
3.2 Analysis of recent typical accidents for gas cylinders
According to information, there were 142,500,000 registered gas cylinders and 924,700 kilometers of pressure pipeline as of the end of 2014 in China; there were 20,645 companies for filling moveable pressure vessels and gas cylinders; and there were 1896 gas cylinder inspection agencies and 226 safety valve calibration agencies. In 2014, there were 28 gas cylinder accidents and 12 pressure pipeline accidents. As for gas cylinder accidents, operation against rules or misoperation resulted in 6 accidents; equipment defects and safety accessory failure resulted in 1 accident; gas leakage led to 14 accidents; and illegal filling led to 2 accidents. As for pressure pipeline accidents, accident phenomena are media leakage or direct human injuries or blasting and human injuries due to pipeline rupture. Accidents are primarily due to equipment quality or personnel operation against rules; and there were 2 ammonia leakage accidents and 5 gas pipeline leakage accidents, 3 vapor pipeline leakage accidents, and 2 other media pipeline leakage accidents. Mr. PU Chungan (the secretary general of CIGIA) presented detailed analysis of recent accidents and transportation accidents of oxygen cylinders, acetylene cylinders, hydrogen cylinders, carbon dioxide cylinders, LPG cylinders, welding thermal insulation gas cylinders and other gas cylinders.
3.3 New changes of industrial product production certificate system and processes
According to information, AQSIQ (General Administration of Quality Supervision) issued the “Suggestions on Further Promotion of Reform of the Industrial Product Production Certificate System” (AQSIQ No. [2015] 364) on August 4, 2015 and the “Notification of Related Work for Optimization of License Approval Process for Further Promotion of Reform of the Industrial Product Production Certificate System” (AQSIQ Supervision Letter No. (2015) 491) on September 2, respectively; and Beijing Quality Supervision Bureau issued the “Notification of Issuance of the Work Plan of Quality Supervision Bureau Implementing the Suggestions on Further Promotion of Reform of the Industrial Product Production Certificate System” (Beijing Quality Supervision No. (2015) 114) on September 28. Mr. PU Chungan presented the detailed interpretation of new changes of industrial product production certificate system and processes, which include: 1) General requirements; 2) The most cancellation of production certificate approval items; 3) The most release of production certificate approval authority; 4) The most optimization of production certificate approval procedures; 5) Intensifying inward and postmortem supervisions for production certificates; and 6) Actually strengthening organization and implementation.
Mr. PU Chungan said: in a word, the main points are to entirely perform the most cancellation of production certificate approval items, the most release of production certificate approval authority, the most optimization of production certificate approval procedures, intensifying inward and postmortem supervisions for production certificates, and actually strengthening organization and implementation.
The most release of authority and reduction of approval links shall be carried out for optimization of approval procedures. Those approved production items, division of product types and specifications shall be cancelled to lower the content levels. The minimum unit for companies applying for production certificates shall be compressed to unit. There are types below unit before; thus, the entire implementation shall be performed for such case; and then dynamic management shall be carried out to those production certificates related to the national safety, production safety, productivity, layout, strategies, resource development and industry polices, whose inward and postmortem supervisions are difficult. In addition, some items may be possibly released to the province level (rather than the national level). Many aspects were released (including the industrial gas items were basically released to the province level). In the province level situations, there may also be some simplified approval procedures, that is to say, as for any company applying for extension of the period of validity of its production certificate, there may be temporarily no any change for its production address, production capacity, significant production processes and technologies, key production equipment and inspection equipment, legal person in comparison with the current ones; and there is no major change in production conditions for stamping its official seal for a company applying for the production certificate; in addition, a written commitment letter is required so that the approval period may be shortened; and certificates may be directly issued.
While a company applies for the production certificate, the production conditions may not be listed in detail and all devices may not be declared; on the other hand, the primary equipments may be listed.
Those conditions held in check of certificates shall be most lowered so that the approval conditions may be lowered; thus, the inspection group leaders will have more authority. These measures are good and bad for companies.
As for promotion of gas inspection in market, any quality authentication will be from CMA in the future, and any inspection agency to be evaluated to above Grade II of Quality Supervision Bureaus will file these items as single certificate inspection items for self selection by companies. If any inspection item of samples is qualified within 6 months, no inspection is necessary.
As for improvement of the management system of inspection agencies, the regulation system of production certificates will be explored in the future, which will be led by the government, undertaken by the industry, and involved in the third-party independent evaluation agencies. Thus, the industry manager may possibly take part in such work and establishment of an inspection department, and then establish a safety evaluation system in the future to lower work of companies for inspection.
Those companies shall be guided to better utilize the industrial product production, classified supervision or quality evaluation of products from industrial companies.
“2015 China Gas Industry Development Summit Forum” was held on October 21-22, in which the national industry well-known experts and nation-renowned business leaders offered advice and suggestions for the gas industry development.
1 Development
1.1 Difficulties and opportunities for the industrial gases industry
Mr. SHENG Zhongke (President of Shanghai Baosteel Gas Co., Ltd.) presented the profound analysis of current gas industry situations and gave some valuable suggestions for gas industry companies how to think creatively and bring forth new development ideas.
1.1.1 Five current changes for concern of the gas industry development
1.1.1.1 Oversupply of liquid products in most parts of China
In Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu), the most economically developed area China, covering about 200,000 square kilometers of land, there are about 30,000 tons of liquid products in total everyday from gas companies and those companies regarding liquid industrial gases as by-products, and these products are sold. If statistics is performed in accordance with the liquid density per square kilometer of land, the density of liquid products may also be the highest in the world, and such case may also show the developed degree of the economy development of China Yangtze River Delta from a different perspective.
Under the over-all situation of adjustment and transfer of China industrial economy distribution, the density of liquid products may be up to the limit state in this region, and such supply and demand situations are very similar for Pearl River Delta region and Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan region. If other companies still establish air separation plants to supply liquid products in this region, various issues may occur and these plants may finally not be put into operation or great challenges may also exist in cost even though these plants were put into operation.
1.1.1.2 Transparent liquid and pipeline gas supply mode
Since those transnational gas corporations entered China market about 20 years ago, China client-side companies already fully knew the field gas supply mode, the game of suppliers and buyers and the requirement for return from investors are very transparent. Moreover, many client-side companies also continue to innovate the purchasing bulk pipeline gas mode; and the payment of buyers according to the leasing industry mode is one new mode. Quite a few industrial gas companies operate air separation plants for supply of pipeline gas so that there may be no profit; that is to say, such case shall be due to no-being in place for pipeline gases and liquid products (namely fixed return and variable return). No profit for operation of an air separation plant may bring about a significant negative impact on an industrial gas company; in addition, operation of additional 10 air separation plants would also be difficult to rescue and balance the overall return status.
1.1.1.3 Relatively large shares for transnational corporations in China market
Transnational corporations have profited from the rapid development of China economy and advantages of capital, technologies and commercial modes over the past two decades so that their development may be very good; on the other hand, China industrial gas business modes also were driven much. Transnational gas corporations contribute a great share in the fact that the third-party gas supply mode may be received by most companies. Nowadays, they are ahead in both the market share and products, and they show an increasingly monopolistic posture in some national markets and industrial parks. The industrial gas industry is a first come, first served, closed and self-fettered industry so that the later ones might be very difficult to catch up with them without innovation.
1.1.1.4 Slowing down the national economic growth rate
China economy may fully manifest a very significant slowdown sign since last year to nowadays or even several years later. On the other hand, the growth of the industrial gas output is closely related to that of the whole national GDP. Thus, while there is any change for the growth of the whole national economy, our gas industry shall also be influenced significantly.
1.1.1.5 Influence of Tianjin event
Tianjin Event and some malignant safety events occurring recently in dangerous chemicals companies give rise to the state attaching great importance to safety management of dangerous chemicals companies; on the other hand, the overcorrecting situations also occur in several regions. Tianjin event is a safety fuse, and a very high requirement is put forward currently to environment and safety all over China. The influence of such high requirement may last for five years or even much long time. The industrial gas industry is a dangerous chemicals industry. If we had been not investing enough in safety and environmental protection, we would be out. Whereas, if profits are not enough, there shall be no enough investment for safety and environmental protection so that we may be out.
Only if those companies have profits, they may sequentially focus environment and safety; otherwise, if they have no profit, the best safety management system would also fall down. The national safety and environmental protection requirements are becoming more and more rigorous and it is a test for industrial gas business. The government requirements may be met, at the same time, our business may be promoted. We shall do a lot of work, of course, the development shall be also complementary.
1.1.1.6 Future 10 years – the integrating time for China gas industry
China gas industry will face strong impact for integration and centralization in future 5-10 years. Integration and centralization shall be necessary so far under China economy background for development of this industry. Such trend is very clear in Europe, America, Japan or Korea. Currently, most China gas companies are low profits and low efficiency so that the background conditions may objectively be ready for integration and centralization. Some industrial gas companies paid costs during their investment processed and these faults in investment or technology may also promote integration and centralization of China gas industry to some extent. It is actually a centralization process. The present more than 2000 gas companies will be greatly lowered.
1.1.2 Some points for development of current gas companies
1.1.2.1 Continual development ability
The continual development ability and complete product lines shall be very significant for an industrial gas company after establishment of its basic plant. The onsite gas supply is actually to establish core resources for an industrial gas company, and it may derive many other contributions except for supply of pipeline gases to customers. Once its output is usually determined for the general manufacturing industry, this company will grow very difficultly in the future development processes (for example: its yearly sales volume and profit are assumed to be RMB 100,000,000 Yuan and RMB 20,000,000 Yuan, respectively); moreover, profits may usually be lowered along with intensifying competition. As for an industrial gas company, there may usually be many different development opportunities after establishment of a plant in some certain place. After an air separation plant has been established, various downstream gas products may be developed and the product profundity may also be continuously enhanced. Then, further development is carried out in this area to form regional products and the supply system; and the market may be relatively controlled. Thus, a continuous growth process may occur in this area.
1.1.2.2 Leasing mode
The industrial gas industry is an industry depending on the capital investment. If a company wants continual development, profits only from one project are not enough. Insufficient funds may lead to its struggling for continual development. Thus, operation of a gas company depends on development of continual projects development and continuous optimization. The project development and central control mode now looks like a very effective competition mode. Good projects or contracts shall be put into operation bus using the leasing mode so as to greatly lower payment funds of gas companies; thus, the possibility of investment return may be improved.
1.1.2.3 Partial performance of the whole value chain mode or transformation
Those transnational corporations usually go in for production, distribution and supply products to terminal customers except for being good at relatively complete product lines, and such mode is also called as the whole value chain mode.
The whole value chain mode is to provide a promotion space for each value chain so that the whole value chain may be performed and many spreading effect may occur. On the other hand, many different challenges may exist in the future development, especially in China market. China companies compete against transnational corporations in cost and quality in many areas and provide better services.
By taking hydrogen as an example, a few companies develops the solid hydrogen storage technology in the intermediate distribution link; and its costs may seemingly be saved by 10%, 20%, 30% or 40% in comparison with those for the high pressure long pipeline distribution mode; by assuming actually its costs being saved by 30-40%, we may save RMB 0.2-0.3 Yuan for hydrogen per 100 kilometers; thus, such link shall be very valuable.
However, it may be very professional this time. While you want to go in for the whole product value chain, your company may feel being unable to do what you want very much to do. Of course, there may be different considerations for many different products, which may correspond to performance of each value segment. Profits and benefits to customers shall be gained together.
1.1.2.4 Mixed economy providing opportunities for the future
In addition, we see a great opportunity, namely the mixed economy system being promoted in China. Baosteel is a large state-owned enterprise companies so as to feel the advantages and system competition disadvantages of the large state-owned companies. Those things to be done by transnational corporations in China may be convenient and hard. The vitality and advantages of China private and joint-stock enterprises may fully be complementary to those of state-owned enterprises.
A centralization and integration process will appear in the future and China will promote the mixed economy mode to gain many integration opportunities which may bring about many different items in technology or capital. We shall relatively further consider these things to find many valuable intersections.
1.2 Current development situations and trends of China electric gases
Mr. LIU Bin from Suzhou JinHong Gas Co., Ltd. introduced representative electric gases such as super purity ammonia, silanes, nitrous oxide, fluoride electric gas and high purity chlorine for manufacturing semiconductors. Mr. LIU Bin said: electric gases shall almost be used in each link from growth of chips to device encapsulation in the semiconductor producing processes and performances of semiconductor devices are dependent to a great extent on quality of electric gases. Semiconductor processing processes include epitaxial, film formation, doping, etching, cleaning, encapsulation and other procedures and more than 30 kinds of high purity electric and mixed gases such as ammonia, silanes and mixed gases, N2(6N), H2(6N), phosphorane, arsenious hydride, boron trichloride , trifluoromethane and so on. Development of the special electric gas industry grows together with development of the semiconductor industry. The international semiconductor market was surging in 2015 and merging cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars emerged one after another so that the semiconductor industry is dominant in the global commercial region after the telecommunication, media, pharmacy and banking and other industries. China issued the “National Integrated Circuit Industry Development Promotion Plan” in 2014 to actively face the global competition for the panel display, memory chip and other industries and control the future development commanding points. China SUMMITVIEW CAPITAL invested about USD 700,000,000 dollars to purchase America DRAM Plant ISSI (Integrated Silicon Solution chip finished semiconductors) in July 2015, and such case indicates that our semiconductor industry makes a great stride; thus, a spring will also come for development of electric gases.
Mr. LIU Bin thought that China electric gas market required a quantitative breakthrough development within rapid time; although we took advantages to supply some domestic products, most of high-end products were still challenging for our industry. Under the flagging economy environment, most gas products were floundering so that gas companies was operated very difficultly and many related enterprises turned back to the electric gas field; and the significant trends were shown for such case in view of the quantities of attendant companies and number of preventatives attending the national special gas annual meeting. On the other hand, many companies entered the electric gas field without consideration of safety costs and steady quality; and a series of vicious circles would occur soon just like those going in for bulk gases currently; furthermore, such situation would be reflected more soon under the catalytic effect of the slowing down economy. As for how our being ready in the booming chance for the electric gas field, we need to do much more subjects. How our calming down to carefully carry out accumulations of optimization of plant processes, stabilizing the gas quality, handling the packaging containers, supporting product analysis methods, supporting logistics, even formulation of related standards and so on, selection of products matching the company capacity, performance of the market investigation, rather than blind investment and triggering any bad market competition shall be what to seriously deal with for us.
1.3 Taking part in haze management actions
Mr. XU Yongsheng (Executive Deputy General Manager of Zhangjiagang CIMC SANCTUM Cryogenic Equipment Co., Ltd.) introduced its profile and the national energy and environment policies (national and local haze management polices and interpretation), and AJT products.
Mr. XU Yongsheng said that AJT is a small innovative gas storage platform, which was specially designed for the industry, laboratories, medical and LNG fuel system and other fields to supply the convenient distribution and application mode; moreover, it is relatively more effective and economical, and safer in comparison with other cryogenic containers. AJT lets users feel rapid transfer field gases; application of AJT shall be free of frequent replacement of steel cylinders; thus, there may be no any injury from operating steel cylinders, or rubbing, wastes and man handling costs from replacement of steel cylinders and so on. AJT takes advantages of the advanced and efficient supply gas design, longer gas supply time, slower self-pressurization rate, larger gas supply volume and more rapid pressurization rate. Its effective thermal insulation structure leads to extremely low liquid loss or no liquid loss within a period of time. Mr. XU Yongsheng specially told they completed the heating performance transformation of 237 coal-fired boilers (<2 tons) in Sanhe City by December 2014. The AJT LNG cryogenic gas supply station from Zhangjiagang CIMC SANCTUM Cryogenic Equipment Co., Ltd. as a member of CIMC ENRIC companies solved the partial pipeline natural gas being not ready and the supply gas issue for small coal to gas users.
1.4 Current development situations and trends of China rare gases
Mr. LI Jun from Han-Steel of Hebei Iron & Steel Group introduced types, applications, current development situations and future perspectives of China rare gases, Han-Steel 2015 rare gases production and sales situations, and the development plan of Han-Steel rare gases and special gases and so on. Mr. LI Jun thought:
1) Currently, domestic neon consumption is not large and national neon products are primarily exported to America, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and other countries and regions. In view of the world, the neon market is still in short supply in a short period along with rapid development of the electric and semiconductor industries and the influence of the global local wars, and the neon consumption is basically stable. At the same time, adjustment of structures of the electric industry and the intelligent manufacturing industry and so on will face good development opportunities along with issuance of the “13th Five Year National Plan”, and the neon consumption will gradually grows in China.
2) In view of the market terminal procurement, the helium consumption is slightly lowered in the photovoltaic industry and as the protective gas; on the other hand, the helium consumption growth manifests in the electric industry, fiber manufacturing, cryogenic superconductors, NMR equipment and other fields. The short-term market will be fluctuated slightly by influence of repairing of the upstream companies and the import volume.
3) In recent years, LED lights being popular and promoted resulted in gradually lowering the market shares of halogen lamps and fluorescent lamps so that the krypton gas consumption may be lowered slightly in the lighting, electric lights and other fields and the market demand may be weak; at the same time, the krypton gas export trade is too general to support the market demand.
4) Along with the xenon market price and being gradually lowered and tending to be stable, the traditional xenon electric light consumption is gradually starting, and the market bargain situations may be improved slightly; on the other hand, the market demand may not be improved obviously under the influence of the soft national overall economy environment.
Mr. LI Jun predicted the rapid yearly growth rate of 25% would have been achieved for China demand rare gases in the next 5 years, so that the development of the rare gas industry may be promoted and stimulated and the sales price and profits will be lowered greatly. In addition, they may be fluctuated slightly within a short period and the price may gradually manifest the lowering trend.
2 Perspectives
2.1 Investment chance and capital operating modes for development of the LNG industry
Mr. WANG Biao (the executive director of Zhongrong Jinhui Investment Management Co., Ltd.) introduced current development situations of China natural gas industry, the investment chances and capital operating modes for development of the LNG industry.
Mr. WANG Biao introduced investment chances in the upstream of the LNG industry chain and required companies shall pay close attention to production and development of domestic small moveable LNG production equipment, social capital for construction of LNG receiving stations and development of overseas LNG sources, and LNG peak-shaving plants in national second and third class cities. On the other hand, the investment chances in the midstream of the LNG industry chain primarily include: high-tech companies going in for LNG equipment production (due to China LNG equipment production being seriously homogenized, low threshold and intensified competition; and the capital being closely near the industry updating of the equipment production companies), as well as LNG logistics transportation (Mr. WANG Biao thought: the railway and marine LNG transportation mode would break through the traditional LNG logistics transportation mode in the future to update the traditional LNG logistics mode based on trucks. The new LNG logistics transportation mode will bring new business chances for those equipment companies for manufacturing special railway LNG tank containers, small LNG tankers and so on).
As for the investment chances in the downstream of the LNG industry chain, Mr. WANG Biao said: a series of national polices were issued to greatly support development of inland LNG filling business. The urban peak-shaving tanks as the significant urban infrastructure to be encouraged and built by the national governments will be under relative great development in a few years, but its development speed would be limited without good commercial operation mode; and small LNG vaporizing stations would be a significant method for popularizing natural gas in China in the future; and the correspondingly derivative industrial and civil LNG distribution energy base stations and small LNG supply moveable terminals and so on would be concerned.
2.2 China LNG market and perspectives
Mr. JIANG Chunhui, as a expert of CIGIA, primarily reported the global natural gas and China LNG, analysis of China LNG market and China energy policies, LNG market perspectives and so on. As for analysis of China LNG market, Mr. JIANG Chunhui pointed out: CNPC/PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinopec released collective force to sign long-term LNG supply agreements from 2008 to 2014, which are up to 38,400,000 tons/year in total. (CNPC/PetroChina and ConocoPhillips signed the AP LNG agreement in 2012 for supply LNG of 7,600,000 tons/year in total; CNOOC and BG successively signed QCLNG and resource pool supply agreements in 2010 and 2013 for supply LNG of 8,600,000 tons/year in total; Sinopec and Exxonmobil and Shell signed higher Australia LNG contracts, respectively, for supply LNG of 4,250,000 tons/year in total. And most of these agreements will be performed in 2015-2017.) The result was suffering Chinese people so that the LNG industry got finally into trouble currently and the fleeting strategic development period may be lost. The diesel oil consumption was lowered by leaps and bounds or even the negative growth rate may occur due to slowdown of China economy. It is predicted the future growth rate will be about 2% and the growth rate of the diesel oil consumption will be only 50% of that of gasoline. There has been no economic benefit for alternative fuel since 2014 due to extremely difference between LNG and diesel oil so that the demand might stagnates. The global natural gas accounts for approximately 24% of primary energy; on the other hand, China natural gas accounts for only 5.8% of primary energy. China natural gas facilities are not complete and the regulations, rules and standards are not perfect. The transmission of prices is distorted due to the government intervention to cause the flagging market.
Mr. JIANG Chunhui questioned some practices of National Development and Reform Commission: 1) Being short of strategic thinking and limited to long-term LNG supply agreements for CNPC/PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinopec, there being no desire to advance further and losing the strategic development initiative; 2) Faulty logic judgment and the electricity, as secondary energy, being defined as new energy for popularization; yet they don't know how the green secondary energy comes from without the primary energy? 3) Actions are always slow in face of the drastically changing market and lagged behind the market so as to greatly hurt the LNG industry.
Mr. JIANG Chunhui emphasized that the energy revolution shall be to free of carbon and broad application of natural gas shall be an insurmountable barrier and the only way to the low-carbon economy; and the energy revolution shall be to free of low efficiency energy; and the energy consumption and management efficiency shall be all focused.
Mr. JIANG Chunhui specially put forward the following suggestions as for China energy structure, namely lowering coal consumption, stabilizing oil supply, improving gas applications and promoting green energy application.
1) Lowering coal consumption: the coal consumption rate will be lowered to 62% in 2020 from 77% in 2012; 2) Stabilizing oil supply: the degree of external dependence will have been up to 67% in 2020 and 70% (peak) in 2030; and then the yearly oil output will have been up to about 220,000,000 tons and the yearly petroleum refinery distillation capacity will have been up to 700,000,000 tons. 3) Improving gas applications: the natural gas output was 183,000,000,000 cubic meters in 2014; the natural gas output will have been up to 330,000,000,000 cubic meters in 2020, 600,000,000,000 cubic meters in 2030 and 700,000,000,000 cubic meters in 2050, respectively; 4) Promoting green energy application: green renewable energy shall be the development direction later and the development from low-carbon to being free of carbon shall be the necessary trend; and only the circular economy may ensure the continual development.
2.3 Price trend of the first three quarters of 2015 and market perspective
Ms. SUN Haixia (the General Manager Assistant Shandong SCI99 Group Co., Ltd.) introduced the supply changes of industrial gases, analysis of industrial gas market prices for the first three quarters of 2015 and the industrial gas market perspectives. Ms. SUN Haixia said: the capacity of China air separation plants were up to 19,485,700 Nm3/h in 2015, whose growth rate is 6.29% (for relative large plants for production of liquid products). Air separation plants are still centralized in North and East China. The equipment operating rate for the first three quarters of 2015 is 63.78%, which is lowered by 6.78% than that for the corresponding period of 2014. The peak equipment operating rate occurs in June and is up to 66%; and the minimum equipment operating rate occurs in February which is lowered to about 60%. The liquid outputs were rising greatly in 2015: China liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen and liquid argon outputs were about 23,210,000 tons (including liquid oxygen: 11,670,000 tons, liquid nitrogen: 8,260,000 tons and liquid argon 3,280,000 tons) in 2015, whose growth rate is 10.1%. The air separation plant operating rate is still in the low level along with the related flagging industries and the relative growth rate of liquid outputs slows down. Based on the SCI99 estimations, it is predicted that the total of liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen and liquid argon outputs may be about 15,080,000 tons in 2015, which is lowered by 4.13% than that of 2014. The actual output for the first three quarters was 11,100,000 tons (including liquid oxygen: 5,100,000 tons, liquid nitrogen: 4,300,000 tons and liquid argon: 1,700,000 tons).
Ms. SUN Haixia specially predicted the industrial gas market: the growth rate of air separation plants will be apparent in following 3 years; and it is predicted the output of air separation plants will have been up to 30,000,000 Nm3/h in 2018, which grows by 36% than that in 2014. On the other hand, the actual growth rate will be lowered due to those influencing factors such as economy pressure, some projects being or to be cancelled or suspended. Most investments are still focused in the coal chemical and petrochemical industries. Outsourcing will be gradually intensified and professional gas companies will be gradually dominant. Steel growth rate slows down and the market will be free of vitality. The coal chemical industry will still under stable development.
OECD predicts the global economy growth rates will be 3.3% in 2015 and 3.7% in 2016 and the growth is continually at the low level. GDPs of its 34 member countries will be up to 2.3% in 2015 and 2.6% in 2016; America economy will turn the good trend, whose GDP growth rates will be up to 2.2% in 2016 and 3.1% in 2017. It is predicted that China economy growth rate will slow down in 2016, which will be 6.9%.
Domestically, although the effects of the early investment of RMB 7,000,000,000,000 Yuan and the future “One Belt and One Road” and other polices are inferior to those in 2008, they shall be beneficial to economy recovery in the long run and many investment projects will also indirectly drive the gas industry.
2.4 Analysis of technology progress and promotion of gas industry development
Mr. FANG Hua (the General Manager of Shanghai HuaAi Chromatographic Analysis Technology Co., Ltd.) introduced chromatographic instruments for air separation plants, electric industrial gases plants, standard gas plants, filling stations for cryogenic liquid tankers, special gas laboratories, aerospace, photovoltaic industry, power industry and coal chemical industry; for example: there being several detection modes: laboratory chromatographic instruments, portable chromatographic instruments, and online chromatographic instruments. Several detector applications: GC-9560 laboratory chromatographic instruments, GC-9760 portable chromatographic instruments, HA-9660 online chromatographic instruments, and 6 major features of HA-9660 online chromatographic instruments and so on.
2.5 New change trends of gas standards for the food industry
Mr. PU Chungan introduced the new change trends of gas standards for the food industry currently, such as 1) Food additive CO2; 2) Food additive H2; 3) Food additive N2; and 4) Requirements for those companies for production and filling of food additives and so on.
For example, in comparison “National Food Safety Standard - Food Additive - Carbon Dioxide” (Exposure Draft) with GB 10621- 2006 “Food Additive - Liquid Carbon Dioxide”, the primary changes are listed as follows: revision of the standard name; adding index requirements and test methods of solid and gas carbon dioxide; deletion of index requirements and test methods of acidity, ethanol, other oxy-organics and hydrogen phosphide; adding the index requirements and test method of ethylene oxide; revision of the index names of hydrocarbons; revision of test methods of sulfur dioxide, total sulfur, benzene, methanol, acetaldehyde, vinyl chloride, grease and evaporation residue; adding the capacitance test method for moisture and so on.
2.6 Current situations and trends of renewable energy hydrogen production and energy storage & conversion
Mr. ZHANG Bihang from Suzhou Jingli Hydrogen Production Equipment Co., Ltd. reported in detail general development situations of China renewable energy and the statuses of abandoning wind power, photoelectricity and hydroelectric power, general situations of overseas renewable energy hydrogen production, energy storage and conversion, general development and utilization situations of China hydrogen energy, the primary modes of renewable energy hydrogen production, energy storage and conversion, analysis of the efficiency of renewable energy hydrogen production, energy storage and conversion, prospects of renewable energy hydrogen production, energy storage and conversion and so on.
As for Analysis of the “Efficiency of Renewable Energy Hydrogen Production, Energy Storage and Conversion”, Mr. Zhang Bihang said: currently, China renewable energy hydrogen production and energy storage conversion efficiency is being enhanced greatly, and the hydrogen production energy efficiency may be up to more than 80%; and there are a few conversion modes such as electric power generation, combustion and fuel cells. The current technology level situations of hydrogen production equipment: upsizing, low cost, high efficiency, broad adaptability, automation, pressurization storage. The output of a single hydrogen production equipment (Suzhou Jingli) is maximum all over the world, which may be up to 1000 Nm³/h. Currently, the maximum output of foreign hydrogen production equipment is 750 Nm³/h, and the maximum output of a hydrogen production equipment from other China companies is 600 Nm³/h. The maximum unit current density of a hydrogen production equipment (Suzhou Jingli) is up to 4500A/m²; and the maximum unit current density of foreign hydrogen production equipment is currently 2000A/m². Suzhou Jingli hydrogen production equipment takes advantages of small volume (about 50% of that of the original equipment) and low weight; in addition, its manufacturing costs are lowered relatively greatly.
As for the development prospects of renewable energy hydrogen production and energy storage conversion, Mr. ZHANG Bihang thought: the hydrogen production energy storage is superior to other energy storage methods, which shall be the significant method for performance of renewable energy accounting for 20% by 2020. Hydrogen is a clean energy and free of emission, and development of hydrogen energy shall be not only a significant method for performance of renewable energy accounting for 20% by 2020, but also an effective method for solution of imbalance energy distribution among West, Middle and East China. Hydrogen may be generated with wind power, photoelectricity, and hydroelectric power and so on and then transferred through pipelines or other modes; thus, hydrogen energy may be broadly used.
Mr. ZHANG Bihang thought that development of hydrogen energy shall be guided by the national policies and in cooperation by the upstream, medium-stream and downstream parties. Thus, Mr. ZHANG Bihang suggested: 1) Those hydrogen production energy storage projects supported by wind power, photoelectricity and hydroelectric power shall be awarded with policy subsidies just like that for construction of the supporting charging stations for electric vehicles; 2) Subsidies shall be given to those wind fields and photovoltaic power stations utilizing waste wind and solar energy, and electric power generation for hydrogen production just like those for gridding wind or solar power; 3) The enthusiasm of the power grid shall be fully aroused and the power grid shall buy waste wind, solar and hydroelectric power. By using the power grid as “shuttle service”, hydrogen production plants shall be established near those application places to save the power transmission costs; 4) By combining with CNOOC and Sinopec, natural gas pipelines are used to transportation; 5) More hydrogen energy utilization channels shall be developed to quicken promotion of the fuel cell technology and let hydrogen fuel cell vehicles be better put into operation; 6) By combining establishment of miniature power grids, the new distributed hydrogen production energy storage power supply mode shall be created; 7) Standards, rules and other necessary safety conditions shall be solved to let the common people dare use and want to use power. Hydrogen power is an indispensable part in life ultimately.
2.7 Characteristics and trends of “Internet +” development of the gas industry
Mr. LIU Weiwei (Chairman of the Gas Network) presented analysis of 7 major characteristics of gas industry and “Internet +” and gas industry development “Internet +”, 5 trends of gas industry development “Internet +”, and 4 changes of “Internet +” to the industrial gas industry and so on.
Mr. LIU Weiwei thought: the industrial gas industry and Internet are relevant closely even they have a long relationship each other; as for early innovations and inventions in those professional fields or some late introduced automation applications, as well as some positive trials of Internet performed currently by many companies, all of those are the embodiment of cooperation between industrial gas industry and Internet.
7 major characteristics of the industrial gas industry development “Internet +” include the star-studded natural network characteristic of various industrial gas companies, the natural barrier characteristic of complete certificates, the natural distribution characteristic of logistics facilities, natural network sales possibility of complete product standards, the latecoming advantages of the informatization intelligent level, alternation of the business mode due to managers facing inheritance of “generation overlapping”, and serious disproportionation of financial innovation consciousness and the industry economy scale. Such 7 major characteristics are determined not only by the properties of industrial gas industry but also the time progress and Internet impact, and these factors bespeak base of natural development “Internet +” for the industrial gas industry.
Mr. LIU Weiwei put forward 5 trends of the gas industry development “Internet +”, namely: 1)The industry association will form the genuine O2O pattern (from offline to online, grafting the network technology and remodeling the industry mode); 2) The industry profit mode will be reformed to form a clear value creation chain, directly contact those online branches from resources to customers, and gradually transit those offline platforms to only services such as distribution, packaging and logistics, and customer site services, and share more types of market opportunities to be created in platforms; 3) More hi-tech means will be ready at lower costs for the industry, such as application of bar codes or electronic labels for management of gas cylinders, and there will be more mechanization and intelligent means. Moreover, he even predicted that there will be a lot of robots for gas operation. There will be lower cost high-tech means such as client terminal remote dialogue, industry centralized control platform and sharing big data value in the gas industry; 4) High integration of industry resources and substantial reduction in duplication of investment will be realized and Gas Network may provide a platform for everyone to share technical knowledge and resources, even management methods and management modes; 5) Based on oriented people and the trend of the times, the industrial gas industry development “Internet +” must be a major breakthrough in next 18 months through joint efforts of all people in the industry.
Mr. LIU Weiwei said we must be brave to carry out trials if you wanted to success; Gas Network will carry out 4 trials:
1) In view of the difficult settlement issue in the industrial gas industry, Gas Network will issue “Gas Network Gas Tickets” to help those companies to collect receivables. If any receivable is not yet paid to its account within the prescribed period, the payment will be made by Gas Network. Gas Network will use contracts and customers treasuring the reputation to remodel the industry trade mode. The key point for performance of such case is to connect those professional Internet financial institutions and the industry trades through the network platform;
2) In view of logistics issues for the industrial gas industry, Gas Network will rational allocate logistics resources on the shelf for companies and optimize logistics through optimization of routes, distribution contents and control means, and this will be “Gas Network Gas Logistics”;
3) Gas Network may bring planning and foresight to the industry through informatization means and the platform effect, seek resources based on the group buying means, provide the production and operation prediction for resource suppliers by predicting orders and big data method, and bring the high planning through sharing data for form the prescient group buying orders; and this will be “Gas Network Gas Quantity”;
4) Gas Network as an “Internet +”platform will bring the industry not only conveniences which can be seen not only unity but resource sharing within the industry so that the industry may form a close group. Those industry companies may embrace the Internet through the complementary advantages to form an alliance; and this will be “Gas Network Gas Group”;
“Gas Network Gas Tickets”, “Gas Network Gas Logistics”, “Gas Network Gas Quantity” and “Gas Network Gas Group” shall correspond to settlement, logistics, operation prediction, value investment subdivision, and these trials of development “Internet +” will be carried out by Gas Network for the industrial gas industry.
2.8 Lean gas distribution management
Mr. REN Jie (Sales Director of Quantum Asia Solutions Limited) introduced development achievements and issues of China logistics field, and industrial gas distribution characteristics. Mr. REN Jie described in detail the high quality services & cost control challenges, the typical business processes, points for improvement of information technology, orders & distribution services, forecasting orders (automatic calculation of future consumption for customers according to the safety liquid level, shipping records and other information), mapping distribution of loads (vehicle real-time status, customer information, map location, route preview, availability of resource locations, and application of real-time data to help scheduling personnel to arrange orders) and so on.
2.9 Large volume gas cylinders for storage of industrial and electric gases
Mr. ZHAO Jingmao (the secretary general of the gas filling station branch of CIGIA) introduced those primary equipment products (seamless steel cylinders, fixed storage vessels/banks, integrated pipes/semitrailers) for storage and transportation of industrial gases, industrial gas products (integrated pipes, semitrailers, storage and transportation equipments for high pressure hydrogen refueling stations, cryogenic industrial gas storage and transportation equipment (cryogenic liquid tanks, cryogenic liquid transport vehicles, cryogenic freezers), cryogenic liquid transportation equipment, cryogenic freezers (small industrial cryogenic liquid supply stations (small gas storage platforms for welding, cutting, hospitals and other industrial gas application units, being more reliable, effective and economical than application of gas cylinders; filling media: liquid argon, liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen)) electric industrial gas storage and transportation equipment and gas cylinder containers and so on from ShiJiazhuang Enric Gas Machinery Co., Ltd. (this company supplied 45MPa moveable hydrogen refueling vehicles and hydrogen storage group-cylinders for 2010 Shanghai Expo, 45MPa moveable hydrogen refueling vehicles for 2011 Shenzhen Universiade, and 45MPa hydrogen group-cylinders for a hydrogen refueling station in Zhengzhou in 2015). Distribution of media by using moveable filling vehicles may prevent consumption of time and manpower waste for replacement of gas cylinders to gain significant economic benefits.
3 Safety
3.1 Analysis of typical accidents for air separation plants
Mr. MA Dafang (Vice Chairman of China Gas Safety Technology Committee) presented detailed analysis of typical accidents of air separation plants. He introduced “Specification of Emergency Disposal of Air Separation Plant Explosion Accidents” (CIGIA Standard) in detail. Mr. MA Dafang said: each air separation plant includes moving equipment and static equipment. An air separation plant primarily refer to those static devices inside and surrounding the cold box, other air turbine compressors, oxygen turbine compressors, compressors, electric appliances and so on, which are called as one assembly equipment. An air separation plant shall be a large scope including moving and static, electrical and medical devices, and computers. On the other hand, our air separation plant is only limited inside or surrounding its cold box.
Explosion accidents include chemical blasting and physical explosions. The former refers to there being chemical reactions, instantaneous and powerful self chain reaction; on the other hand, the latter has no chemical reaction, and it is a explosion for which the gas pressure of a container pipeline is more than the curvature or intensity limit of the container pipeline material; moreover, it does not occur instantaneously but it shall be a process. Thus, it is called as physical blasting or explosion. The typical difference lies in there being a chemical reaction or not.
Air separation plants face such two types of explosion; thus, we require enough cooling in “Specification of Emergency Disposal of Air Separation Plant Explosion Accidents” (CIGIA Standard) for prevention of air separation plant blasting and liquid pipeline gas blasting. Physical blasting is due to rupture of any pipeline inside air separation plant cold box.
There exist many chemical blasting particularly in chemical companies, and hydrogen blasting is named for air separation plants due to there being hydrogen. In addition, leakage oil and gas from air separation plants and oxygen are mixed for explosion. Except for physical explosions, there are relative much liquid products for air separation plants in some chemical companies; liquid nitrogen leakage may result in relative high operating temperature particularly in the early starting period; what is worse, the whole air separation plant may basically collapsed. There are many such accidents and the lesion shall be very grave.
“Specification of Emergency Disposal of Air Separation Plant Explosion Accidents” (CIGIA Standard) may be utilized to find causes and prevention countermeasures. In addition, design (including the plant manufacturing design to the field erection design) is the early stage; and any design issue shall be a congenital defect. Moreover, more attentions shall be paid to construction; especially, supervision shall be carried out. A good design shall be put into practice through construction supervision. Furthermore, the perfect safety management shall be performed. They are a system project.
3.2 Analysis of recent typical accidents for gas cylinders
According to information, there were 142,500,000 registered gas cylinders and 924,700 kilometers of pressure pipeline as of the end of 2014 in China; there were 20,645 companies for filling moveable pressure vessels and gas cylinders; and there were 1896 gas cylinder inspection agencies and 226 safety valve calibration agencies. In 2014, there were 28 gas cylinder accidents and 12 pressure pipeline accidents. As for gas cylinder accidents, operation against rules or misoperation resulted in 6 accidents; equipment defects and safety accessory failure resulted in 1 accident; gas leakage led to 14 accidents; and illegal filling led to 2 accidents. As for pressure pipeline accidents, accident phenomena are media leakage or direct human injuries or blasting and human injuries due to pipeline rupture. Accidents are primarily due to equipment quality or personnel operation against rules; and there were 2 ammonia leakage accidents and 5 gas pipeline leakage accidents, 3 vapor pipeline leakage accidents, and 2 other media pipeline leakage accidents. Mr. PU Chungan (the secretary general of CIGIA) presented detailed analysis of recent accidents and transportation accidents of oxygen cylinders, acetylene cylinders, hydrogen cylinders, carbon dioxide cylinders, LPG cylinders, welding thermal insulation gas cylinders and other gas cylinders.
3.3 New changes of industrial product production certificate system and processes
According to information, AQSIQ (General Administration of Quality Supervision) issued the “Suggestions on Further Promotion of Reform of the Industrial Product Production Certificate System” (AQSIQ No. [2015] 364) on August 4, 2015 and the “Notification of Related Work for Optimization of License Approval Process for Further Promotion of Reform of the Industrial Product Production Certificate System” (AQSIQ Supervision Letter No. (2015) 491) on September 2, respectively; and Beijing Quality Supervision Bureau issued the “Notification of Issuance of the Work Plan of Quality Supervision Bureau Implementing the Suggestions on Further Promotion of Reform of the Industrial Product Production Certificate System” (Beijing Quality Supervision No. (2015) 114) on September 28. Mr. PU Chungan presented the detailed interpretation of new changes of industrial product production certificate system and processes, which include: 1) General requirements; 2) The most cancellation of production certificate approval items; 3) The most release of production certificate approval authority; 4) The most optimization of production certificate approval procedures; 5) Intensifying inward and postmortem supervisions for production certificates; and 6) Actually strengthening organization and implementation.
Mr. PU Chungan said: in a word, the main points are to entirely perform the most cancellation of production certificate approval items, the most release of production certificate approval authority, the most optimization of production certificate approval procedures, intensifying inward and postmortem supervisions for production certificates, and actually strengthening organization and implementation.
The most release of authority and reduction of approval links shall be carried out for optimization of approval procedures. Those approved production items, division of product types and specifications shall be cancelled to lower the content levels. The minimum unit for companies applying for production certificates shall be compressed to unit. There are types below unit before; thus, the entire implementation shall be performed for such case; and then dynamic management shall be carried out to those production certificates related to the national safety, production safety, productivity, layout, strategies, resource development and industry polices, whose inward and postmortem supervisions are difficult. In addition, some items may be possibly released to the province level (rather than the national level). Many aspects were released (including the industrial gas items were basically released to the province level). In the province level situations, there may also be some simplified approval procedures, that is to say, as for any company applying for extension of the period of validity of its production certificate, there may be temporarily no any change for its production address, production capacity, significant production processes and technologies, key production equipment and inspection equipment, legal person in comparison with the current ones; and there is no major change in production conditions for stamping its official seal for a company applying for the production certificate; in addition, a written commitment letter is required so that the approval period may be shortened; and certificates may be directly issued.
While a company applies for the production certificate, the production conditions may not be listed in detail and all devices may not be declared; on the other hand, the primary equipments may be listed.
Those conditions held in check of certificates shall be most lowered so that the approval conditions may be lowered; thus, the inspection group leaders will have more authority. These measures are good and bad for companies.
As for promotion of gas inspection in market, any quality authentication will be from CMA in the future, and any inspection agency to be evaluated to above Grade II of Quality Supervision Bureaus will file these items as single certificate inspection items for self selection by companies. If any inspection item of samples is qualified within 6 months, no inspection is necessary.
As for improvement of the management system of inspection agencies, the regulation system of production certificates will be explored in the future, which will be led by the government, undertaken by the industry, and involved in the third-party independent evaluation agencies. Thus, the industry manager may possibly take part in such work and establishment of an inspection department, and then establish a safety evaluation system in the future to lower work of companies for inspection.
Those companies shall be guided to better utilize the industrial product production, classified supervision or quality evaluation of products from industrial companies.
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