Samsung Total, Lotte Daesan to build new C3 plant

19 June 2006 09:56  [Source: ICIS news]

SHANGHAI (ICIS news)--Samsung Total and Lotte Daesan, two South Korean petrochemical majors, plan to build a new olefins conversion unit (OCU) to be located in Daesan, which will produce propylene, sources close to the companies said on Monday.

“It’s a sign of close co-operation between the two companies,” a source at one of the companies said. Current existing petrochemical plant compounds for the two companies lie side by side.

The OCU, sometimes referred to as a metathesis unit, is slated to start up by mid-2008, said a source close to Samsung Total. He added that the estimated cost would be around Won60 billion ($62.4m/€49.6m).

Both parties had initially been planning to build a unit each, but decided to jointly build a larger unit due to increased cost savings.

The capacity of the new unit has not yet been decided, but will probably be 200,000 tonnes/year of propylene, using crude C4 and ethylene as feedstocks, a market source said. However, some sources said that capacity at the plant was still undecided and that it could be increased by another 50,000-70,000 tonnes/year.

Lotte Daesan will supply feedstock such as crude C4, while Samsung Total will supply ethylene, but the share of the investment costs is not clear.

The share of the propylene production will be split evenly between Samsung Total and Lotte Daesan, a source added.

Samsung Total's share of propylene from the OCU unit will go to boosting production at a new 300,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) plant that is due to start up end-2007, while Lotte Daesan’s portion will be going into a new methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant.

This olefins conversion unit will be the third in Korea, with Korea Petrochemical Industries Corp (KPIC) and LG Petrochemicals having the first and second units.

By: Steve Tan
+65 6780 4359

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