The piling ceremony for the construction of the first batch of equipment of the BASF (Guangdong) Verbund Site project is held on May 30 in Zhanjiang's Donghai Island. [Photo by Liu Jicheng/gdzjdaily.com.cn]

The first batch of equipment of the BASF (Guangdong) Verbund Site project started its piling work in Donghai Island of Zhanjiang on May 30, marking that the $10 billion petrochemical project has entered its civil engineering phase.

The first batch of equipment will be used for the production of engineering plastics and thermoplastic polyurethane, which can meet the customer demand in a number of growing industries in South China and Asia.

It took less than two years from the signing of the memorandum of understanding of the BASF (Guangdong) Verbund Site project to the construction of the first batch of equipment thanks to the strong support of the local government, as well as efforts made by BASF and its partners, said Lin Hanping, leader of the project.

"To date, construction of the project is processing steadily and orderly," said Lin. "We are confident to go into production by the end of 2022 as planned."

The BASF (Guangdong) Verbund Site project, which is China's first wholly foreign-owned large-scale petrochemical integration project and the German chemical giant's largest overseas investment, began construction in Zhanjiang in November 2019.