PolyMirae Co. Ltd., a 50-50 partnership of LyondellBasell Industries NV and Daelim Industrial Co. Ltd., will establish a joint venture with SK Advanced Co. Ltd. to build a grassroots polypropylene (PP) plant in the southeastern port city of Ulsan, South Korea, to serve the Asia Pacific region.
The proposed 400,000-tonne/year PP plant will begin construction in January 2019 for planned startup during first-half 2021, LyondellBasell and PolyMirae said in separate releases.
Production from the new plant—which will be equipped with LyondellBasell's proprietary Spheripol PP process technology and receive propylene feedstock from SK Advanced’s nearby 600,000-tpy propane dehydrogenation plant—will be sold to customers in South Korea as well as exported throughout Asia Pacific for use in automotive components, injection molding, blow molding, and packaging film.
Some of PP production will be sold to compounding companies in South Korea and the broader region, LyondellBasell said.
The companies said they will begin the process of submitting all required regulatory filings and permitting reviews soon.
“With the addition of this [JV’s] capacity, PolyMirae will ensure that automotive manufacturers in South Korea and throughout Asia will continue to be able to locally source the [PP] they need to advance the next generation of fuel efficient vehicles, and that LyondellBasell will gain access to additional export volumes to ensure our global production footprint will continue to grow alongside our customer base,” said James Seward, LyondellBasell’s vice-president of JVs and international marketing.
“With successful integration of value chain from propane to [PP] business through JV partnerships, SK Advanced will secure a stable outlet for propylene and further strengthen competitiveness of its gas chemical business which its mother company, SK Gas Co. Ltd., has been expanding from its LPG base,” according to Chul-Jin Kim, SK Advanced’s chief executive officer.
PolyMirae currently operates four PP Spheripol production lines with a combined capacity of 700,000 tpy in Yeosu, South Korea.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
