Ineos considers exiting Sinopec petchem jv

Due to weak market sentiments, Ineos Group Holdings is said to be in discussion with China’s Sinopec over a potential full or partial exit from the petrochemicals joint venture at Tianjin, China, according to market reports.

It had stated in its recent third quarter financial results that the “group is in discussions to partially or fully exit the participation in the Tianjin joint venture, although the exact terms of the agreement have not yet been negotiated.”

Ineos and Sinopec entered into the jv in 2023, with Ineos becoming an equal partner in the 1.2 million tonnes/year steam cracker and 13 derivative plants located in the Nangang industrial zone at Tianjin, which were then in the development phase.

Meanwhile, reports have said that discussions with Sinopec regarding are ongoing, according to Ineos.

Ineos Group Ltd. is the parent company of Ineos Group Holdings, which operates the group’s global olefins, polymers and chemical intermediates activities.

The Tianjin petchem complex includes an ethane-fed cracker and derivative plants including a dedicated 500,000 tonnes/year high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plant, a 350,000 tonnes/year HDPE and linear low-density PE swing plant, and a 350,000 tonnes/year polypropylene (PP) plant. The steam cracker and PE plants began operations in November 2024, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.

The HDPE plants produce Ineos pipe-grade material under license, Ineos said in August 2023 following the jv’s formation.

Ineos and Sinopec completed two other petchem deals in December 2022. Ineos acquired a 50% stake in Shanghai SECCO Petrochemical, an affiliate of Sinopec, which has a total petchems capacity of 4.2 million tonnes/year, including ethylene, propylene, PE, PP, styrene, polystyrene, acrylonitrile, butadiene, benzene and toluene. The company operates a manufacturing complex at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park.

The companies also established a 50/50 ABS jv, based on Ineos’s proprietary ABS technology that was planned to have a production capacity of up to 1.2 million tonnes/year of ABS.

A 600,000 tonnes/year ABS plant built by Ineos’s affiliate Ineos Styrolution at Ningbo, China, is part of the jv. The remaining ABS capacity was planned to come from two new 300,000 tonnes/year plants, including one at the Tianjin complex.

The company also stated that its other joint ventures in China, including SECCO in Shanghai and the ABS joint venture in Ningbo, would continue to operate as normal.

In the company’s third quarter financial results statement, Ineos flagged losses from jvs in the period ended Sept. 30 that “primarily reflected the group’s share of losses from the SECCO and Tianjin joint ventures with Sinopec.”

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