Revamps current HPPO by 2013, and Constructs new by 2016





1st Revamp of 1st commercialized HPPO plant after 3 years from inauguration

SKC (President: Park Jang-suk) announced that it will churn out 600,000 tons of PO by 2016, starting with 1st revamping project designed to add a production capacity of 30,000 tons to its current HPPO plant this year.



By completing 1st commercialized HPPO plant adapting an eco-friendly process in 2008, SKC has cumulated the operation know-how to reduce production and maintenance costs. Thus, the marginal revamping expenditure to add an extra 30,000 tons to output from the current HPPO plant might be only 40 percent of that of the original investment, which could allow the company to further boost its cost competitiveness. The company plans to complete this revamp by the first half of 2012 and start an additional revamp to add 70,000 tons by the end of 2012. If the expansion roadmap could be completed on track, SKC might double the production capacity of its HPPO plant from 100,000 tons to 200,000 tons by 2013.





Target is to be No.1 PO maker in Asia in 2016

This is not the end. SKC also challenges to construct another HPPO plant by 2016, with a capacity of 200,000 tons. As such, the company will have a combined production capacity of 600,000 tons of PO by the end 2016. This will lead the company to be No.1 PO maker in Asia.



While expanding its PO capacity, SKC will accordingly enlarge its PO downstream production such as polyol and propylene glycol, and global system Houses. By the end of 2016, it aims to secure a production capacity of 400,000 tons of polyol and 200,000 tons of PG, in addition to 600,000 tons of PO. The system houses also could get to its global hubs throughout the U.S., China and Poland.





Competitiveness of HPPO
SKC’s President Park Jang-suk stressed that the HPPO process would dominate the market in the near future among several existing production methods. Park said that the conventional PO plants mostly in China entails environmental problems due to the emission of chlorine while general PO/SM method might have trouble with a fluctuating SM values and high sewage costs. He strongly asserted that SKC’s intangible competitiveness acquired from operating HPPO during last 3 years made his company prevail most of global competitors and that he’d like to leverage it to grow further throughout PO downstream sectors.