Asia’s Sinopec and Japan’s Mitsui Chemicals have entered into a preliminary agreement to invest yen (Y) 60bn ($667m) to build a phenol plant(250,000 tonne/year) and an EPT rubber plant(75,000 tonnes/year) which were said to be operational by 2013.However, officials were not immediately available for comments. Sinopec and Mitsui Chemicals currently own a 50:50 joint venture that runs a 120,000 tonne/year BPA plant in Shanghai. The successful operation of the joint venture had prompted the decision to expand cooperation to phenol and other downstream derivatives.