China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (SINOPEC) and the world chemical industry leader BASF has signed a 500 million U.S. dollars agreement to expand their joint chemical project in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province.

The site, namely BASF-YPC Co. Ltd., is one of the largest Sino-foreign petrochemical joint venture projects in China with a total investment of 2.9 billion US dollars in the first phase.

Following last year's smooth and successful start-up, SINOPEC and BASF jointly decided to extend their joint operations by expanding the capacity of their steam cracker and investing in additional downstream plants to further strengthen synergies at the site, according to company sources.

Under the new agreement, the joint venture will expand the steam cracker from 600,000 to around 750,000 metric tons of ethylene p.a.; expand the ethylene oxide (EO) plant and develop EO derivatives to strengthen the ethylene value chain; develop the C4 value chain; and expand the acrylics value chain. The new activities are expected to come on stream in 2009.

Both companies also agreed to integrate their second joint operation Yangzi-BASF Styrenics (YBS) in Nanjing into BASF-YPC Co. Ltd to increase efficiency and make full use of existing synergies.

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