The Total Investment is Approximately 7.128 Billion Yuan! SOPO Chemical Invests in Vinyl Acetate and EVA Integrated Project

On December 8, Jiangsu SOPO Chemical announced that it plans to invest in a vinyl acetate and EVA integrated project in the Zhenjiang New District New Materials Park with its wholly-owned subsidiary SOPO Chemical New Materials as the main body. The total investment of the project is approximately 7.128 billion yuan, which will be divided into two parts. The first phase is a 330,000 tons/year vinyl acetate project, and the second phase is a 300,000 tons/year EVA project.

As of the end of the third quarter, Jiangsu SOPO Chemical's total assets were 6.274 billion yuan and net assets were 5.101 billion yuan. This vinyl acetate and EVA integration project plans to invest more than 7 billion yuan, exceeding the total asset level and equivalent to recreating Jiangsu SOPO Chemical. As for the source of project funds, Jiangsu SOPO Chemical said it will come from its own funds and other self-raised funds. Due to the large investment amount and long construction period of the project, the company may bear certain financial risks. As of the end of September 2023, Jiangsu SOPO Chemical's monetary fund balance was 724 million yuan.

Why did Jiangsu SOPO Chemical make a big bet? The final product of this project is vinyl acetate and photovoltaic-grade EVA resin with a VA content of 28%. Vinyl acetate is the raw material of EVA. The downstream application market is mainly in the photovoltaic field.

In the past ten years, China's EVA consumption has grown at an average annual rate of 10%. Although China's EVA production capacity has grown relatively rapidly since 2015, production capacity and output still cannot meet demand, especially in the high-end EVA market, large amounts of imports are required.

According to Jiangsu SOPO Chemical, the project will enrich product categories, expand the downstream acetic acid industry chain, and promote the transformation and upgrading of the company's industry into the field of high-end new materials.

From the perspective of asset integration, Polyester Technology owns approximately 357 acres of land in the New Materials Industrial Park of Zhenjiang New District, and the land is close to SOPO Chemical New Materials.

The company plans to carry out overall management of relevant land parcels to meet the land needs for the construction of vinyl acetate and EVA integrated projects.

It is worth noting that Polyester Technology originally planned to promote the construction of a 200,000 tons/year dimethyl carbonate project on the aforementioned land, with a project investment of approximately 2.181 billion yuan. With the completion of this absorption and merger, relevant projects will be constructed on other sites.

According to the data, SOPO Chemical New Materials is mainly engaged in the production and sales of basic chemical raw materials such as chlor-alkali and sulfuric acid. It has 600,000 tons/year sulfuric acid and downstream series product equipment, 200,000 tons/year ion membrane unit, 170,000 tons/year high-purity hydrochloric acid unit, 13,000 tons/year polyol unit, 30,000 tons/year dichlorobenzene unit, 55,000 tons/year air separation unit, and 50,000 tons/year chloroacetic acid unit. Current product application fields include light industry, textile, chemical industry, agriculture , building materials, electricity, electronics, food processing, etc.