China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) said it has built a new meltblown non-woven fabric production line in eastern China's Jiangsu Province in order to bolster the raw material supply of face masks amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project is the first meltblown cloth production line of Sinopec Yizheng Chemical Fibre Limited, a subsidiary of Sinopec in Yizheng City, Jiangsu Province. It took only 35 days from the commencement on February 24 to production on Sunday, which is 18 days ahead of the original plan.

It is estimated to have an annual output of 500 tonnes of the fabric, which is the core material for surgical masks.

As an upstream producer of raw materials in the industrial mask chain, Sinopec has decided to build 16 such production lines, with four in Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Co. and 12 in Sinopec Yizheng Chemical Fibre Limited.

It said the second production line of Yizheng Chemical is scheduled to go into production in early April. Eight production lines in the first phase are expected to be completed and put into operation by the end of April, and four lines in the second phase will be completed and put into operation by the end of May.

The chemical company said it can produce 12 tonnes of N95 meltblown non-woven fabric or 18 tonnes of raw materials for medical masks per day after all the 12 production lines are put into production, which will help increase the production of 18 million disposable medical masks per day.

Meanwhile, the production lines launched by Yanshan Petrochemical have started operation on March 6, with a daily capacity of six tonnes. After all the four lines in Yanshan putting into production, eight tonnes of N95 meltblown non-woven fabric or 12 tonnes of raw materials for medical masks can be produced per day.