On the morning of 8 April, a landmark signing ceremony was held at the Green Chemical and Hydrogen Energy Industrial Park in Maoming’s Binhai New Area — the Cooperation Framework Agreement for the Maoming 1-Million-Tonne Natural Graphite Deep Processing Project was formally executed. Zhuang Yuequn, Secretary of the Maoming Municipal Party Committee, and Wang Xiongfei, Mayor, attended and witnessed the signing. The Binhai New Area Management Committee, Donghua Energy, and Huakuang Industrial will jointly establish a full industrial chain at the park running from overseas graphite raw ore to high-end carbon-based materials, adding another multi-billion-RMB industrial pillar to Maoming’s bid to capture the AI-era new materials race.
1. Raw materials direct from Madagascar, targeting AI core materials
The 1-million-tonne-grade project is not simple coarse graphite processing. It is deep processing aimed at three frontier sectors: new energy, high-end manufacturing, and electronic information. Raw materials are locked in from premium natural graphite mining areas in Madagascar. After initial screening, the ore will be shipped directly to Maoming, where the full process — including purification, modification, and graphene preparation — will be carried out. The resulting high-end graphite and graphene materials are the key “grit” behind AI compute chips, power batteries, carbon fibre composites, and high-end equipment manufacturing.
“Polypropylene is the cement, carbon fibre is the rebar, and graphite and graphene are the aggregate — put them together and you have the ‘ready-mix concrete’ of the AI era,” said Wang Mingxiang, Actual Controller of Donghua Energy and President of Fuji Investment, speaking at the signing. His analogy, in a single line, captures the project’s strategic value. He stated plainly that the AI-driven manufacturing revolution is, at its base, a materials revolution; whoever controls the full carbon-based composite materials chain will hold the initiative in the future materials competition.
2. Donghua Energy closes the loop: propane → propylene → polypropylene → carbon fibre → graphene
For Donghua Energy, this signing is not an isolated move but the capstone of five years of deepening presence in Maoming. Since moving south to Maoming in 2019, Donghua Energy has built out its integrated alkane resource utilisation project, opening up the basic chemical chain from propane to propylene to polypropylene. In March this year, the company formally relocated its headquarters to Maoming, and its 10,000-tonne-scale T1000 carbon fibre project, developed in parallel, is approaching production. With the 1-million-tonne graphite project now landing, Donghua Energy has formally closed the loop on a complete carbon-based industrial chain in Maoming: propane → propylene → polypropylene → carbon fibre → graphene.
The synergies across the three projects are clear. The alkane project supplies basic polypropylene feedstock; the carbon fibre project produces high-end reinforcement materials; and the graphite project fills the gap in graphene and high-purity carbon materials. Together, the three interlock — from basic chemicals, to high-end composites, to AI-core carbon-based materials — with raw material supply, technology, and products flowing between them. The result is a complete, integrated carbon-based new materials cluster of a kind rarely seen in China, free of reliance on any single link in the chain.
3. Why Maoming: a petrochemical base exceeding RMB 160 billion (~USD 23.5 billion), provincial-level park, and zero-carbon port
The backing to land a project of this scale — 1 million tonnes and a tens-of-billions-of-RMB (USD 1.5 billion+) investment — comes from solid industrial fundamentals in Maoming. Wang Changqing, Standing Committee Member of the Maoming Municipal Party Committee and Executive Vice Mayor, noted that local petrochemical output has already exceeded RMB 160 billion (approximately USD 23.5 billion), with titanium-zirconium new materials accelerating towards a hundred-billion-RMB (approximately USD 14.7 billion) scale. The Binhai New Area’s Green Chemical and Hydrogen Energy Industrial Park is among the first provincial-level chemical parks in western Guangdong and is now advancing construction of a zero-carbon park. Port logistics, utilities, and environmental infrastructure are all in place, the business environment continues to improve, and the park has ample capacity to host large-scale new materials projects.
Unlike traditional chemical parks, this park has been positioned from the outset for green, high-end, chain-linked industrial clustering. Once the graphite project lands, it will form strong coupling with the existing alkane and carbon fibre projects, both completing the carbon-based materials chain and driving the park’s chain-extension, chain-completion, and chain-strengthening agenda, accelerating the upgrade towards high-end, large-scale, and zero-carbon operations.
4. More than a single project: Maoming building a new materials hub for the AI era
This signing is more than a single project landing — it represents a strategic step up for Maoming’s new materials industry. From traditional petrochemicals, to integrated alkane utilisation, and now to carbon fibre and graphene high-end carbon-based materials, Maoming is breaking out of the old “resource dependence” model and building a modern industrial system combining basic chemicals, high-end new materials, and new energy. Once the 1-million-tonne graphite project is operational, it will not only fill the high-end graphite deep-processing gap in western Guangdong, but also draw upstream and downstream supporting enterprises into the cluster, forming a hundred-billion-RMB-scale (approximately USD 14.7 billion) carbon-based new materials industrial cluster and injecting powerful new momentum into Maoming’s high-quality development.
In the AI era, materials are the foundation; carbon-based materials are the foundation of the foundation. With Donghua Energy’s full chain now in place and the multi-billion-RMB graphite project under way, Maoming is rapidly evolving from a traditional chemicals hub into an important green carbon-based new materials base for the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area and, more broadly, China as a whole.
Note: All CNY figures converted to USD at an approximate rate of 1 USD = 6.82 CNY as of 16 April 2026. Where the original article references scale indicators (百亿级 / 千亿级) rather than specific figures, conversions reflect the floor of those scale ranges (RMB 10 billion ≈ USD 1.5 billion; RMB 100 billion ≈ USD 14.7 billion).
Source: Caijing Toutiao (财经头条), “100万吨级石墨项目落子茂名！东华能源补全碳基全链，AI新材料高地再落一子”, republished via WeChat, April 2026.
Disclosure: This article has been translated from a Chinese-language source published on WeChat. For clarity and formatting purposes, GraphiteHub has made some adjustments; however, all underlying facts, figures, and quotations are from the original source. GraphiteHub does not guarantee the accuracy of the translation and accepts no responsibility for any errors, omissions, or misinterpretations. Readers should refer to the original WeChat article for the authoritative source material. This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
