Abstract:Petrochemical industry has been evolved in China for decades as the domestic economics and markets develop. Lack of oil reserves, together with the rapid increase of the demand of liquid fuel and chemicals, leads to the risky and uncontrollable supply of the oil feedstock and meantime hinders the optimization of the structure of China's chemical products. Coal to chemicals, after more than 30 years' research and development, is becoming an effective and significant approach to produce basic chemicals such as olefins and aromatics. In view of the relatively abundant coal reserves in China, it is essential to develop coal chemical industries, which can be considered as a complement to petrochemical industries at either the strategical level to produce olefins, aromatics, and ethanol, or at the technical level to directly co-feed methanol with naphtha or toluene for on-purpose production. This opens a potential way for the coordinated development of coal chemical and petrochemical industries in China.