MOSCOW (MRC) -- South Korea’s major integrated producer SK Innovation will expand its petrochemical business in China by strengthening partnerships with the Chinese petrochemical companies, according to SK Innovation CEO Chung Chul-khil Thursday, reported TPS.
Chung said that SK Innovation will conduct a 'China-oriented' petrochemical business strategy via active mergers and acquisitions (M&A), as well as partnerships with the Chinese petrochemical majors, South Korea’s Financial News reported.
"There are a lot of concerns over the slowdown of the Chinese economy but I believe that China is still the world’s largest petrochemical market with enormous potential for growth," Chung said.
"The joint venture that we had with Sinopec presents an excellent example. We need to forge more partnerships with the Chinese counterparts in order to accelerate petrochemical business in China," Chung added.
As MRC informed earlier, in 2013, SK Innovation formed a joint venture with Sinopec via its petrochemical subsidiary SK Global Chemical (SKGC) in Wuhan, China.
The joint venture’s Wuhan plant has started commercial operation since January 2014. It has a naphtha cracking center (NCC) that is able to produce up to 800,000 mt/year of ethylene, 600,000 mt/year of polyethylene (PE) and 400,000 mt/year of polypropylene (PP).
According to SKGC, the joint venture’s 2015 operating profit is estimated to have increased by threefold on year to USD387.14 million (KRW 465 billion).
"SK Innovation’s partnership with Sinopec was an outcome of the company’s so called ‘China Insider’ strategy that aimed to construct ‘Second SK’ in China. We will continue our efforts to build the ‘Third and Fourth SK’ in China," Chung said.
MRC