INEOS will acquire a 50% stake in Sinopec's Tianjin Nangang ethylene project

On December 7, 2022, INEOS and Sinopec signed a new cooperation agreement, INEOS will acquire a 50% stake in Sinopec Tianjin Nangang ethylene project. The project currently has a 1.2 million ton ethylene cracker under construction and a downstream high-end new material derivative product plant, which is expected to be put into operation by the end of 2023.

Earlier, in July 2022, INEOS and Sinopec announced plans for a partnership, with a complete set of derivative products units under construction, including a 300,000 mt/year ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer) plant and a 500,000 mt/year HDPE (high-density polyethylene) plant.

The 300,000 mt/year ABS plant will use INEOS' world-leading Terluran® ABS technology and will be the second ABS project jointly built by INEOS and Sinopec. At present, the first ABS project with an annual capacity of 600,000 tons is located in Ningbo and is under construction by INEOS.

Tianjin Nangang ethylene 500,000 tons/year HDPE plant, which is expected to come on stream by the end of 2023, is the first HDPE unit licensed by Sinopec in China to produce INEOS pipe grade products, and INEOS and Sinopec also plan to build two more HDPE plants in China.

This is the fourth cooperation agreement signed by INEOS and Sinopec in 2022. Previously, INEOS and Sinopec announced three joint venture projects including:

First, INEOS agreed to acquire a 50% stake in Shanghai SECCO Petrochemical Co., Ltd. ("SACO"), a subsidiary of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (SINOPEC).

Located in the Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park, the 200-hectare plant currently has an annual production capacity of 4.2 million tons of petrochemicals, including ethylene, propylene, polyethylene, polypropylene, styrene, polystyrene, acrylonitrile, butadiene, benzene and toluene.

Second, INEOS agreed to establish a new joint venture with Sinopec on a 50%:50% stake basis, targeting 1.2 million mt/year of ABS capacity to meet China's rapidly growing demand.

The 600,000-tonne-per-year ABS project, located in Ningbo, is currently under construction by INEOS Boncollar and is scheduled to start production by the end of 2023 and will form part of the joint venture.

INEOS and Sinopec also plan to cooperate to build two additional ABS projects with a capacity of 300,000 tonnes per year using INEOS' world-leading Terluran®ABS technology. One of the ABS projects with a capacity of 300,000 tons/year will be located in Tianjin, and the location of the third project has not yet been determined.

Under the third agreement, INEOS and Sinopec will build a new 500,000 mt/year HDPE (high-density polyethylene) project at the Tianjin Nangang ethylene project.

In addition, INEOS and Sinopec will build at least two more 500,000 tons/year HDPE (high-density polyethylene) projects in the future, and license the production of INEOS pipe grade products.