Hanwha Total Petrochemicals Co. Ltd. (HTPCL), a 50-50 joint venture of Hanwha Group, Seoul, and Total SA, Paris, will invest more than $300 million to expand the polyethylene (PE) capacity of its Daesan refining and petrochemicals integrated complex in Chungnam Province, South Korea, about 145 km from Seoul.
The proposed project will increase PE capacity at the site by more than 50% to 1.1 million tonnes/year by yearend 2019, Total said.
The expansion will use proprietary Advanced Double Loop technology jointly licensed by Total and Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. to produce a wide range of high-end specialty PEs to supply South Korean demand as well as the fast-growing Chinese market, the operator said.
The project complements the planned $450-million expansion of the Daesan complex’s steam cracker, which alongside increasing ethylene production capacity by 30% to 1.4 million tpy also will increase the complex’s feedstock flexibility, enabling it to process competitively priced and abundantly available propane supplies resulting from rising US shale gas production (OGJ Online, Apr. 12, 2017).
The steam cracker and polymer expansion projects together will allow the integrated manufacturing site to capture margins across the full value chain, said Bernard Pinatel, Total’s president of refining and chemicals division.
The ethylene expansion project at Daesan is scheduled to be completed in mid-2019, Total previously said.
Total and Hanwha formed HTPCL following Hanwha’s 2015 purchase of Samsung Group’s petrochemicals business, which included Samsung’s 50% interest in the Daesan complex under the former Samsung Total Petrochemicals Co. Ltd. joint venture, according to an Apr. 30, 2015, release from HTPCL.
In addition to its current output of 1 million tpy of ethylene, 1.77 million tpy of paraxylene, and 1.05 million tpy of styrene monomer, the Daesan complex produces polypropylene, PE, ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer, as well as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, LPG, fuel oil, and solvents.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
