Sinopec trials China’s first SEPS elastomers facility

Yueyang, China – Sinopec’s subsidiary Baling Petrochemical started trial run at its SEPS (styrene/ethylene-styrene/propylene) thermoplastics elastomer facility in late August, according to Sinopec’s website.

Located in Yueyang, Hunan province, the new facility has 20,000 tonne per year annual capacity. It started construction in March 2016 and has received over €38 million (300 million yuan) investment.

Joint research on the technology was started in 2009 by Baling Petrochemical and Beijing Research Institute of Chemical Industry, also a Sinopec affiliate.

The Yueyang facility claims to be China’s first of its kind and the world’s third, after one plant in the US and one in Japan. The two overseas plants have a combined annual capacity of 130,000 tonnes.

Before the new facility “China’s SEPS consumption, about 30,000 tonnes per year, is fully dependent on import with high prices,” said the website.

SEPS made at the site will also sell to overseas markets, the website added.