Korea Petrochemical Ind. Co. Ltd decided to diversify its business portfolio by entering Purified-EO and EG business which has never been produced in Ulsan.
The plan of this project is to invest 200,000,000,000 korean Won to build a plant which can produce 40,000 tons of EO and 150,000 tons of EG per year by 2014.
Ethylene oxide is important or critical to the production of detergents, thickeners, solvents, plastics, and various organic chemicals such as ethylene glycol, ethanolamines, simple and complex glycols, polyglycol ethers and other compounds.
Ethylene Glycol is an organic compound widely used as an automotive antifreeze and a precursor to polyester fiber and PET.
EO/EG are produced by three major companies in korea, Honam petrochemical, LG chemical and Samsung Total. The capacity of EG is 1.36 million tons per year and there is no EO/EG plant in Ulsan petrochemical complex. Domestic demand of EG in the year 2011 was 1.21 milion tons.
Hereafter as for global EO/EG market, EO derivative supply would be tight due to high growth of demand in Asia including China.
Korea Petrochemical Ind. Co. Ltd expects the new facilities to jack up sales by about 270 billion won each year.
