INEOS Oxide looks at expanding its business in China

INEOS Oxide, a producer of specialty and intermediate chemicals derived from ethylene and propylene, like ethylene oxide (EO), propylene oxide (PO), glycolethers, alkoxylates, ethanolamines, glycol ether esters, glycol and antifreeze and coolants, is looking at China for new business. Hans Casier, CEO of INEOS said, “China is the fastest growing market in the world. INEOS mainly focused on technology patent licensing here in China in the past years but will gradually take more attention to the products production in the future.” The INEOS Group already has built cooperation with Sinopec for jointly launching phenol and acetone project and with PetroChina in new trading and refining joint ventures related to the refining operations in Grangemouth and Lavera, he said. INEOS Oxide currently has six large-scale petrochemical plants, with sales of more than 3 million tons of oxide products per year. INEOS Oxide has more than trebled its EO capacity at Antwerp to 420,000 tons per annum since the current management acquired the asset in 1995, he said. In addition to supplying EO directly into the merchant market and third-party customers, INEOS Oxide converts a substantial proportion of its EO into a comprehensive range of specialty EO derivatives. EO is a highly reactive building block for many specialized EO derivatives which are themselves very reactive, in turn making them attractive for a wide range of end uses, such as pharma-care products, detergents/shampoos, synthetic lubricants, surface coatings, agrochemicals, biotechnology, food and paper processing and oil and gas recovery. (July 6, 2011)