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(Adds Sinopec Qingdao, re-arranges table) BEIJING, June 28 (Reuters) - Top Asian refiner Sinopec Corp has proposed a $3.1 billion ethylene plantin east China that would be its first plant to use natural gasand liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as a petrochemicalfeedstock. Sinopec may be looking at the plan as a way to counter thethreat of cheap U.S. ethylene imports. Shale gas crackers in theUnited States can produce ethylene at less than half the cost ofthe typically naphtha-fed crackers in Asia. China, keen to cut its import dependence on ethylene fromnear 50 percent currently, will likely add some 8 million tonnesper year ethylene capacity between 2013 and 2016. These projects will either be expansion of existingfacilities or greenfield plants through joint ventures withcompanies like Royal Dutch Shell, Qatar Petroleum andKuwait Petroleum Corp. Sinopec Corp is the industry leader that contributes sometwo-thirds of China's ethylene output, followed by PetroChina and China National Offshore Oil Company, the parent ofCNOOC Ltd. Ethylene is a key building block for petrochemicals fromplastics to rubber to synthetic fibre and also a key factordriving up demand for refined oil products like naphtha. The following table lists new ethylene plants started since2009, according to industry sources and Chinese media reports.-------------------------------------------------------------- Company Location New Capacity Start-up (tonnes) --------------------------------------------------------------SNP/Aramco/Exxon Fujian 800,000 mid-2009 PetroChina Dushanzi 1,000,000 late 2009 Norinco/Zhenhua Panjin 480,000 late 2009 Sinopec/SABIC Tianjin 1,000,000 Jan 2010 Sinopec Zhenhai 1,000,000 Q1 2010 Sinopec/BASF Nanjing 150,000 2011 PetroChina Daqing 600,000 June 2012 PetroChina Fushun 800,000 Oct 2012 Sinopec/SK Wuhan 800,000 2012 ------------------------------------------------------------TOTAL 6.63 mln Under construction and planned:----------------------------------------------------------- PetroChina Chengdu 800,000 2013 Sinopec/Exxon/ Fujian 200,000 2014 CNOOC Huizhou 1,000,000 2015/16 Sinopec/Kuwait Zhanjiang 1,000,000 2014 Sinopec* Nanjing 800,000 2015PetroChina* Lanzhou 1,000,000 NA PetroChina/Shell* Taizhou 1,200,000 NASinopec Hainan 1,000,000 2015/16Sinopec* Qingdao 1,000,000 NA ----------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL 8 mln T *pending government approval (Reporting by Chen Aizhu and Judy Hua; Editing by Jijo Jacob)