April 6 (Daily Yomiuri Online) -- Idemitsu Kosan Co. and Mitsui Chemical Inc. have agreed to jointly operate their Chiba Prefecture ethylene production facilities.
The alliance of the major refiner and petrochemical firm is aimed at streamlining their production lines to make the pricing of their products competitive with those of foreign competitors. The companies said the joint operation would cut annual production costs by about 3 billion yen. The alliance also will consider uniformly operating the ethylene production facilities with a neighboring Idemitsu oil refining plant, which is expected to generate 10 billion yen in savings.
Idemitsu and Mitsui have set up a 50-50 joint venture, capitalized at 200 million yen, to operate two naphtha crackers with capacity of producing a total of 920,000 tons of ethylene annually.