Chemical joint venture to expand

BASF, the world's largest chemical company, is to expand ethylene capacity by 25% at its mainland joint venture with Sinopec in order to meet growing demand, Bloomberg reported. The company wants to double the percentage of global sales from the country to 10% by 2010, with much of its US$1.2 billion investment earmarked for Asia over the next four years expected to enter China. The US$2.9 billion BASF-Sinopec chemical plant and other processing units in Nanjing started operating in June and have the capacity to produce 1.7 million tons of high quality chemicals.