UK chemicals company INEOS has reportedly formally exited the ethylene joint venture it established with China’s Sinopec in Tianjin in 2023.
The JV being exited is reportedly a 50:50-owned, 1.2-million-tonne-per-year ethylene cracker facility with total investment of about $7 billion, it is reported. Following the exit, Sinopec will reportedly hold the project entirely on its own.
INEOS will reportedly pay a total exit fee of $120 million to Sinopec in installments over 24 months starting March 2027. Part of the facility reportedly began operating in late 2024, and in 2025 it operated as Sinopec’s first “fully green power” plant, it is reported. In June 2026, about 5,000 tonnes of ethylene from the facility were reportedly exported to South Korea for the first time.
The exit is reportedly attributed to structural oversupply and deteriorating profitability in China’s ethylene market, and is viewed as being in line with the trend of major overseas chemical companies such as BASF and Dow scaling back their European and Chinese assets.
As global chemical companies continue restructuring their China ethylene businesses, this is viewed as a case that could affect the region’s future supply structure.
The completion schedule for the exit fee payments and changes in the facility’s utilization rate under Sinopec’s sole operation are worth watching.