»PROCESS« China

The global energy and chemical market is currently showing a trend of moderate recovery, and the industry is accelerating into a deeper stage of high-quality development defined by volume control with quality improvement, green transformation and high-end breakthroughs. At the same time, the rise of emerging tracks such as high-end chemical new materials, new-energy supporting chemicals, green low-carbon fine chemicals, CCUS and industrial heat pump applications, together with increasingly stringent safety and environmental requirements, is profoundly reshaping the competitive landscape of equipment manufacturing.

In the midst of this change, how should equipment manufacturers find their way forward? With an eye on the industry’s pain points and a focus on the progress of domestic substitution, PROCESS interviewed Mr. Li Jun, Technical Director of Chemical Products at Snowman Group.

Under Pressure in Traditional Tracks: How to Balance Cost Reduction, Efficiency Gains and Long-Cycle Stability?

Petrochemical and coal-chemical industries remain the largest demand sectors for industrial refrigeration and gas compression equipment, but competition in the industry has entered an intensely heated phase. Li Jun admitted: “The most pressing pain point in the industry today is reducing cost while improving efficiency. Order volumes are growing, yet under intense market competition the industry’s overall profit margin is trending downward. This is forcing equipment makers to find a new balance among performance, delivery lead time and cost.”

Moreover, customer demands are becoming increasingly segmented. Traditional chemical customers care most about safety, explosion protection and operational stability, and a growing number of refineries are strictly controlling unplanned shutdowns. Oil and gas field customers, meanwhile, place greater weight on return on investment, short delivery times, and the equipment’s ability to handle complex gas compositions containing corrosive components, heavy hydrocarbons and the like. “The very same compressor is ranked completely differently in value by different owners,” Li Jun pointed out.

However, true cost reduction is by no means simply winning bids with low equipment prices. The test of long-cycle stable operation often lies hidden in the details. Li Jun gave an example: a PSA hydrogen-production project in Shandong once encountered a difficult fault in which the lubricating oil viscosity kept declining, directly affecting the plant’s long-cycle continuous operation. After troubleshooting, Snowman’s professional team found the root cause: heavy hydrocarbons in the feedstock gas condensed and precipitated in the lubricating oil, diluting the oil. In the end, the team fully resolved this long-standing operating problem by replacing the oil with a dedicated anti-dilution lubricant and precisely adjusting the compressor’s discharge superheat parameters.

There is an old saying in the oil and gas cryogenic sector: the compressor is the “heart” of the system, and the process route is the “soul” of its operation. As the inventor of the screw compressor rotor profile, Sweden’s SRM boasts nearly a century of technological accumulation, which is also the most core competitive moat of Snowman compressors.

“By optimizing the rotor profile, we achieve a smaller leakage triangle, a shorter contact line and a larger inter-tooth area,” Li Jun explained. These obscure engineering terms translate into intuitive performance indicators: a volumetric efficiency of 92.4%, an isentropic efficiency of 61% and an adiabatic efficiency of 85% (all verified through testing by the Chinese Academy of Sciences).

“In plain terms, these figures mean that at the same power consumption, our compressors can deliver more effective gas volume,” Li Jun emphasized. In the Shandong PSA hydrogen-production project, it was precisely this inherent efficiency advantage, combined with precise optimization of discharge superheat, that fundamentally overcame the operating risks posed by heavy-hydrocarbon condensation. For chemical companies that watch their budgets closely, this 1% efficiency improvement translates into electricity savings of millions over a 20-year life cycle.

To meet chemical plants’ exacting requirements for oil purity, Snowman Group has established a multi-stage control system from the compressor body to the oil separator. For example, to meet the requirement of oil content below 0.01 ppm for MRC refrigerant, it offers “primary + secondary + tertiary” multi-stage separation or activated carbon adsorption solutions, and recommends monitoring and replacing filter elements on a one-year cycle to keep outlet oil content compliant over the long term and ensure efficient operation of the heat exchangers.

In a single mixed-refrigerant (SMR) cycle or a propane pre-cooling + mixed-refrigerant (C3/MR) process, Snowman Group’s MRC mixed-refrigerant compressor unit, built on SRM-series compressors, highly responsive energy-regulation mechanisms and a high-efficiency oil separation system, keeps the oil content of the MRC refrigerant strictly below 0.01 ppm to ensure efficient heat-exchanger operation and system stability.

Rising Standards, Reshaped Tracks: For Domestic Equipment Going Global, It’s Not Just Products — It’s the Whole System

Unlike the “involution” of bulk chemicals, emerging markets spawned by new energy (lithium batteries, hydrogen, CCUS) — such as polysilicon, chlor-alkali and cryogenic superconductivity — demand a qualitative leap in equipment requirements. Emerging tracks bring opportunities but also raise entry barriers. Owners’ standards have upgraded across the board from the past “good enough to use” to “strict certification + short delivery + high reliability.”

Li Jun shared Snowman Group’s experience in the Adani VCM (vinyl chloride) project in India. Facing rigorous review by the world-class owner Adani and the internationally renowned PMC (JGC Group), the project went through approval of as many as 245 technical documents, as well as mandatory certification by India’s PESO (Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation). In the end, Snowman Group successfully delivered 8 compressor units and more than 100 vessels, and completed payment collection smoothly.

Li Jun stressed that such projects test not the performance of a single piece of equipment, but the equipment maker’s entire engineering capability — from solution design and project management to compliance certification. Overseas owners assess not only the product but the whole system. Behind this achievement lies Snowman Group’s solid technological foundation and systematic capability: it holds ASME and PED qualifications, is equipped with complete hardware facilities from raw-material testing to non-destructive testing such as radiography and magnetic particle inspection, and has more than 200 professional technical engineers.

This not only proves that domestic equipment has the capability for “high-standard delivery,” but also signals that Chinese companies are moving from “exporting products” toward “exporting standards and services.”

In terms of delivery format, modular skid-mounted systems are becoming an important solution for high-standard projects.

Li Jun noted that skid-mounted design can greatly reduce on-site construction work and shorten project cycles, while offering protection from rain and sun, noise reduction and mobile operation capability. It is especially suited to small and medium-sized oil and gas fields and overseas projects, because complex on-site work can be moved forward and completed in the workshop, keeping uncertainty within the controllable factory environment.

The SRM industrial-grade ammonia refrigeration unit, custom-developed and delivered by Snowman Group, is a concentrated embodiment of this capability:

· As the core key process equipment of the entire green ammonia production plant, it directly determines green ammonia synthesis efficiency and the plant’s overall energy consumption level

· The unit is powered by the Swedish SRM industrial-grade screw compressor under Snowman Group, with a ductile iron casing and forged-steel rotors delivering excellent metallic properties, ensuring the safety of pressure-containing components under high-pressure ammonia

· The motor has an IP65 protection rating, the complete unit is designed to the IICT4 explosion-proof class, and all electrical and instrumentation components are sourced from international brands

· The mechanical seal uses a bellows-type sealing structure, ensuring that the compressed medium ammonia does not leak into the atmosphere

As Safety and Environmental Constraints Tighten, How Should Equipment Makers Choose Their Technical Route?

In chemical scenarios, the media are flammable and explosive and process continuity requirements are extremely high; safety is an untouchable red line. At the same time, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol and domestic HFC control policies are placing hard constraints on refrigerant selection.

The dual pressure of safety and environmental protection tests the technical-route choices of equipment makers. Li Jun said that Snowman has built a natural working fluid solution covering the entire temperature range:

√ Propane or ammonia is used for the medium-to-high temperature range

√Carbon dioxide or ethane is used for the medium-to-low temperature range

√ Ethylene or the MRC (mixed-refrigerant) process is used for the cryogenic range

In a lithium hexafluorophosphate project, the customer was initially undecided among multiple refrigeration options. After detailed thermodynamic calculations and economic analysis, Snowman’s technical team ultimately recommended an R507 and carbon dioxide cascade system. This solution not only perfectly matched the project’s energy-efficiency requirements but also significantly reduced the footprint, earning high recognition from the customer.

In the LNG sector, the propane pre-cooling + MRC mixed-refrigerant process is absolutely the mainstream route, but core compressors have long been heavily dependent on imports. Looking at the market structure, small and medium-sized LNG projects (for example, those at 100,000, 150,000 and 300,000 m³ scales) are now basically dominated by domestic brands, and the industrial route is quite mature; while large million-cubic-meter projects are mostly dominated by international and joint-venture brands.

Addressing the core demands of small and medium-sized project owners — “quick return on investment and stable, reliable technology” — Snowman entered the market with its self-developed containerized modular MRC refrigerant compressor unit, successfully breaking the “choke point” situation.

In May 2026, the Ziye 8 project (a 300,000 m³ MRC unit) developed by Snowman in cooperation with Jiayun Oil & Gas was started up successfully in a single attempt, bringing significant economic benefits to the customer. In Li Jun’s view, the entire MRC system, including the cold box, is now a mature application. “In the past, the cryogenic process for ultra-deep shale gas was basically monopolized by foreign technology. Now our own equipment not only achieves the same level, but is better adapted to China’s complex geological and climatic conditions.”

“Providing cleaner energy and power for humanity, letting cleanliness change lives, and restoring the earth with green!” This is Snowman Group’s vision. Li Jun acknowledged that industry competition will remain fierce, but technological depth will continue to widen the gap. In his view, what Snowman Group hopes to deliver to the industry is a systemic capability — built on core compressor technology and leveraging natural working fluids and high-end skid-mounted equipment — to empower the green cryogenic transformation of the chemical and energy industry, and it will keep refining its products to deliver solutions with higher efficiency, lower energy consumption and less pollution.

Looking ahead, Snowman Group’s product roadmap points toward large-displacement compressors (API standard), industrial heat pumps (waste-heat recovery) and the application of industrial centrifugal machines in the cryogenic field; while consolidating its position in the MRC and LNG markets, it is extending into new gas-application areas such as hygienic-grade and feedstock gas.

By Zhang Shengjie, PROCESS