PolyMirae forms joint venture with SK Advanced
July 04, 2018 - South Korea
PolyMirae is entering into a joint venture with SK Advanced in South Korea to build a new 400,000 ton/year plant to manufacture polypropylene, which is used as raw material for technical textiles. The plant will serve customers in Asia and will be located in the southeastern port city of Ulsan. It is dependent on regulatory filings and permitting reviews.
PolyMirae is a joint venture 50 per cent owned by LyondellBasell, one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world, and 50 per cent owned by Daelim, a construction and petrochemical company in South Korea.
Construction on the project will begin in January 2019 and operations at the plant will begin in the first half of 2021.
"Through direct investment or through a joint venture such as PolyMirae, we continue to build production capacity to serve rapidly growing end markets in Asia," said James Seward, vice president of Joint Ventures and International Marketing at LyondellBasell. "With the addition of this joint venture's capacity, PolyMirae will ensure that automotive manufacturers in South Korea and throughout Asia will continue to be able to locally source the polypropylene 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."
The new polypropylene plant will be one of the largest of its kind in Asia and will utilise LyondellBasell's industry-leading Spheripol technology. Polypropylene manufactured at the joint venture will be sold to customers in South Korea and exported throughout Asia for use in automotive components, injection molding, blow molding and packaging film. Some of the polypropylene will also be sold to compounding companies in South Korea and the broader region. (SV)