Ineos Technologies (Rolle, Switzerland; www.ineos.com) and Sinopec YPC have signed an agreement to form a 50/50 joint venture (JV) company to be based in Nanjing, China. The JV, which is to be called INEOS YPC Phenol (Nanjing) Company Ltd is set to build the largest phenol acetone plant in China, due to be completed at the end of 2016. This is Ineos’ largest investment in China and YPC’s eighth joint venture. It will have a total investment of approximately $0.5 billion (RMB 3.15 billion). The plant will be based on Ineos’ proprietary phenol technology and Sinopec’s proprietary cumene technology.
The production capacity of the new plant will be at least 400,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of phenol and 250,000 m.t./yr of acetone. It will also include 550,000 m.t./yr of cumene capacity. Together, with the associated infrastructure, the JV will be the largest capital investment ever undertaken by Ineos in China.