(Yicai Global) May 30 -- China’s petrochemical giants are rapidly diversifying into new energy fields such as charging piles and sustainable fuels, not to mention investing heavily in renewable energies such as wind and solar, as the world’s transport industry becomes less dependent on fossil fuels.

China Petrochemical, also known as Sinopec, had built more than 2,200 battery charging and swapping stations and 98 hydrogen refueling stations as of the end of 2022, Chairman Ma Yongsheng said last month. And the Beijing-based company aims to upgrade its more than 30,000 filling stations into an integrated network for petrol and hydrogen refueling as well as battery charging and swapping.

“Within two years, French oil major TotalEnergies will have 11,000 charging piles in China,” Anne-Solange Renouard, president of TotalEnergies China Investment, told Yicai Global. In five years, the emerging electric vehicle charging business is expected to account for a quarter of the company’s downstream business value.”

Moving into renewable energies is not only an opportunity for petrochemical companies to invest in the future, but also a way for them to offer more “added value” services.

“The business logic behind the change from serving gasoline-powered cars to serving EVs is that refueling a car can be done quickly, but charging is slow,” said Stephane Dion, managing director of Total Lubricants China. “This means that the way we serve our customers should also change. We can consider other services for them while charging their cars. It is an opportunity we are actively trying to seize.”

New businesses are also emerging with the electrification of the auto industry. For example, the lithium batteries used in most electric cars work much less efficiently in very high or low temperatures. As a result, thermal management of EVs has become a hot research topic. Courbevoie-based TotalEnergies opened a lab in Tianjin this year to develop battery-cooling technology.

Sustainable aviation fuels, which cut carbon emissions by 85 percent compared with normal jet fuel, are also becoming a focus. Last December, a plane from Air China’s cargo fleet flew from China to Belgium using bio-jet fuel produced by Sinopec’s Zhenhai Refining and Chemical. This was the mainland’s first international freight flight using sustainable aviation fuel, Civil Aviation Administration of China News reported at the time.

“Zhenhai Refining and Chemical is linking arms with several airlines,” Beijing-based Sinopec said in its annual sustainability report. The company could produce 100,000 tons of bio-jet fuel a year as of the end of 2022.

But China does not yet have a mandatory target for the use of sustainable aviation fuels, so airlines are not eager to use them due to the cost. Bio-fuel projects such as Zhenhai Refining and Chemical remain at the demonstration stage.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor