LG Chem invests 2,800 billion won in high value-added production facilities

LG Chem decided to invest a total of 2.8 trillion won in domestic facilities to strengthen its core value-added raw materials business.

LG Chem decided to invest 2.6 trillion won in high-cost naphthalene cracking (NCC) and polyolefin (PO) production facilities in the Jeollanam-based plant. do Yeosu on 23. As a result, the production capacity of the two facilities is increased by 800,000 tons each. In addition, he decided to build a promising mbad production complex in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province.

LG Chem expects annual sales of 3 trillion won to increase through this investment. In addition, he said that 2.5 million people will be employed during the construction period, and another 300 jobs will be created after the operation.

The completion of the NCC's expansion is expected to be in the second half of 2021. Since then, the production capacity of NCC at the Yeosu factory has expanded to 3.3 million tonnes on the basis of ethylene production. This is the sum of the increase by the improvement of own production capacity.

In addition, in the case of high added-value PO, it plans to increase its production capacity to 1.8 million tonnes by 2022 by transferring part of the multipurpose product range. to a high value PO production line. "LG Chem has decided to make a significant investment to secure a large quantity of ethylene needed to develop its high added-value PO business and to reinforce its profit structure by internalising basic raw materials such as propylene, butadiene, benzene, etc. We will climb to the top in Asia and the top three global companies in the field of high added value PO. "

High value added PO is ethylene-based and environmentally friendly and high performance catalysts. It is mainly used for functional films, automotive plastic materials, functional footwear, wire rope coatings. The global high value PO market is expected to grow from KRW 13 trillion last year to KRW 18 trillion by 2022. In addition, only a few companies, such as LG Chem, Dow Chemical and Exxon Mobil, possess basic catalyst technologies and are clbadified as promising companies because of their high technological barriers to entry.

LG Chem plans to increase its share of high value-added POs, which account for about 50% of total PO orders, to 75% by 2022 and take the lead of competitors in terms size and market share.

Meanwhile, in the promising materials production complex to be built at the Seomun industrial site in Dangjin, Chungnam province (240,000 ㎡), the company plans to develop super-insulating materials for industrial use.

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