Located in the estuary of the Yellow River, Dongying, Shandong province, has entered a new era of development and construction.

The city, which has grown due to its rich natural resources, now faces transformation and upgrading of its economic structure. It is seizing the opportunity provided by Shandong province to implement a major project to transform new and old growth drivers.

While upgrading traditional industries, it will develop new industries, under a plan using the layout of the "1+4+3+6" new and old energy conversion development system. 

While playing a good "dominant brand" by actively cultivating a number of key industries such as petrochemicals, non-ferrous metals, rubber tires and so on, it has established new industries such as high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy materials, aviation, marine economy and other emerging industries to create the Dongying model of transformation of resource-based cities.

Upgrading traditional industries: high-end petrochemical industry bases are rising

Dongying's crude oil processing capacity reaches 69 million tons, the largest in China. 

According to the Shandong provincial government's plan, Dongying will focus on building a high-end petrochemical industry as a means of replacing old growth drivers with new ones. Dongying will inject new and high technology into the petrochemical industry to stimulate new vitality in traditional industries. 

"According to advanced international standards, our city has scientifically worked out base planning and implemented key projects, and it will focus on projects to produce per year 2 million tons of paraxylene, 1.2 million tons of high-quality caprolactam, 1.2 million tons of ethylene and so on,” said an official from the Dongying municipal development and reform commission. 

"This will be done with investment of 41.45 billion yuan ($6 billion), which will increase the main business income by more than 70 billion yuan."

Dongying is also striving to optimize distribution in the petrochemical industry with the "1 + N" model. "1" is the high-end port-vicinity petrochemical industry base, which will build an advanced petrochemical industry zone in the northern coastal area. "N" refers to a number of key chemical industrial parks and bases. 

At present, all newly built chemical enterprises in Dongying are located in various specialized parks. In the high-end offshore harbor petrochemical industrial base, 26 chemical enterprises and four petroleum refining and chemical enterprises have been built and put into operation, with total processing capacity of 15.8 million tons at one time. Some of these enterprises have been listed as "top 20 chemical enterprises in China" for five consecutive years. Of the 280 explosive chemical production enterprises in the city 242 have been gathered in the special parks.

Dongying is innovating the construction mode of high-end petrochemical industry bases, building new business platforms, such as East China Petroleum Trading Center and Yellow River Delta Petrochemical Trading Center, and providing integrated trading of 17 kinds of refined oil and fuel oil. It has also set up a 20-billion-yuan petrochemical industry fund.

Dongying Port has become the largest port for oil products and liquid chemicals in Bohai Bay Rim economic region, with crude oil product throughput reaching 54 million tons in 2017. 

By the end of last year, the main business income of Dongying petrochemical industry had reached 488.83 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 27.8 percent. The sales revenue of 17 enterprises had reached over 10 billion yuan. 

Key projects led Dongying petrochemical industry to move towards the national level. The project of petrochemical upgrading and transformation by 5 million tons per year constructed by China National Offshore Oil Corporation, Shandong provincial government and Dongying municipal government has now been completed. It has been listed by the National Development and Reform Commission as "the key project of national product oil quality upgrading from 2013 to 2017".

The project mainly involved the construction of more than 10 sets of equipment and supporting projects, such as refining 5 million tons per year of raw materials. Relying on Bohai Bay crude oil and adopting advanced international technology, the main business income will be able to reach 17 billion yuan annually.