UK chemical company INEOS is reportedly fully divesting its stake in an ethylene joint venture project with China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) in Nangang, Tianjin, and withdrawing from the venture. The joint venture, Sinopec INEOS (Tianjin) Petrochemical Co., Ltd., was established in August 2023 with a 50-50 equity split, but under the new agreement, Sinopec will reportedly become the sole owner.
The original project centered on a 1.2-million-ton-per-year ethylene cracker, with 11 downstream units including 500,000 tons per year of HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene, using INEOS technology), 100,000 tons per year of POE (Polyolefin Elastomer), 200,000 tons per year of LAO (Linear Alpha Olefin), and 100,000 tons per year of UHMWPE (Ultra-High-Molecular-Weight Polyethylene, using Sinopec technology). Construction began in March 2022 with commercial operation originally targeted for April 2024, but INEOS reportedly cited a slowdown in China’s domestic market as the reason for its withdrawal. The process licensor for the ethylene cracker itself is not specified in the original report.