Abstract: During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China’s petrochemical industry ushered in a new wave of construction climax. With the reform and opening up entering a new stage, China has increasingly raised the requirements of petrochemical project construction in terms of safety, environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction by formulating new and more stringent policies, laws and regulations and standards. In this background, new problems and changes have emerged in the plant design of some large-scale petrochemical projects recently implemented or planned to be built. In order to solve the new problems and cope with the new changes, some practical optimization schemes are put forward from the aspects of land saving, flare design, power fuel supply, storage and transportation facilities, water supply, air supply and waste disposal. Also the new progress in plant design technology is introduced

Key words: petrochemical construction project, plant design, utility facility, waste disposal, flare