MOSCOW (MRC) -- GS Caltex has opened a chemical plant in the Czech Republic to increase its supply of compounded resin in Europe, as per GV.
The plant is built on a 40,000 square meters land at an industrial complex in Karvina (370 km east of Prague), according to the firm, South Korea’s second-largest oil refiner.
It said the plant can produce 30,000 tons of compounded resin, a functional plastic widely used in manufacturing cars and electronics products, per year. The company added its annual supply of the product will reach 190,000 tons worldwide.
"The completion of the plant has allowed us to take a meaningful step in the compounded resin market in Europe as an international manufacturer," said GS Caltex Vice Chairman and CEO Huh Jin-soo at the ceremony held on the site to celebrate the establishment of the plant.
This is the first time that a Korean enterprise is running a plant with a capacity to manufacture 30,000 tons of compounded resin, according to the firm.
It said it will sell its polymer compounds to the Korean companies operating in the region. They include the country’s two biggest automakers - Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors - and the electronics giant Samsung Electronics.
"We also plan to expand our sales to other global enterprises such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen in the near future," GS Caltex said.
The firm said it will increase the amount of annual production at the Karvina plant to 50,000 tons by 2016. It also said the plant is anticipated to have annual sales of 1 billion won (USD 94.1 million) in 2017.
GS Caltex sold 6,000 tons of the compounded resin in Europe last year. The total size of the regional market in the same time period was 12,000 tons.
With the new plant, the firm said it anticipates increasing annual production of compounded resin to 240,000 tons by 2016 worldwide.
As MRC reported previously, CB&I was recently awarded a contract by GS Caltex for the license, basic engineering and catalyst supply for a new paraxylene (PX) unit to be built in Yeosu, Korea. The unit will use the BP paraxylene technology, exclusively licensed by CB&I, and will have a world-scale design capacity. Start-up is expected in 2016.
GS Caltex has been producing compounded resin domestically as well as overseas. Its domestic plants include the ones at the industrial complex in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province and Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province. In Langfang, China, it operates a plant with an annual production capacity of 40,000 tons. The plant in Heibei Province has supplied polymer compounds to China and neighboring nations such as Russia, Taiwan and Thailand. It also has another Chinese unit in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.
MRC