MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lotte Chemical plans to more than double the production of metaxylene and polycarbonate (PC) at its plants in Ulsan and Yeosu, South Korea, by the second half of 2019, as part of a 370 billion won (USD326.39 million) investment plan, Reuters reported.
Under the expansion plan, Lotte Chemical will raise its meta-xylene production at its Ulsan plant by 200,000 tonnes to 360,000 tonnes per year (tpy), and polycarbonate production at its Yeosu plant by 110,000 tonnes to 210,000 tpy by the second half of 2019.
As MRC informed before, in December 2016, Lotte Chemical announced its plans to invest about USD215 million to increase the ethylene production capacity at its Yeosu plant by 2018. Thus, Lotte Chemical will increase ethylene capacity by 200,000 t/y to 1.2-million t/y. Through the project, propylene production will also increase to 620,000 t/y from 520,000 t/y currently. Construction is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2017, with commercial production planned at the end of 2018.
Meta-xylene is typically used as feedstock for purified isophathalic acid (PIA) to produce plastic bottles, and polycarbonate is an engineering plastic.
South Korean Lotte Chemical is a global petrochemical company, established in 1976. It produces low density polyethylene (LDPE), high density polyethylene (HDPE), linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), polypropylene (PP), functional resins, styrene monomer (SM), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), etc.
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