S-Oil’s newly opened plant has world’s largest production capacity for paraxylene

21-Oct-11

S-Oil’s newly expanded Onsan Plant in Ulsan has been officially opened. The project, which doubled the plant’s petrochemicals production capacity to 1.7 mln tons, was completed in April and the expanded facility went into commercial operations in May. This was followed by the stabilization period, during which the company ensured that all systems were running as intended. “The new facilities are the starting line for S-Oil’s future, not the final destination, and we will expand our business territory to petrochemicals downstream and further to solar energy business of manufacturing poly silicon,” Subaey said. The 1.3 trillion won (US$1.1 bln) expansion project pushed up the company’s annual capacity for producing petrochemicals such as paraxylene and benzene from 1.24 mln metric tons to 2.46 mln tons. In addition, the Onsan facility’s daily crude oil refining capacity has also increased to 669,000 barrels from the previous 580,000 barrels. “S-Oil exports about 60% of its petrochemical products and is now positioned as the largest paraxylene supplier in the region thanks to new capacity addition. On the back of solid demand growth in China and Asia, which make up 79% of global paraxylene demand, S-Oil will create stellar economic results with over 20% growth in operating income,” the S-Oil CEO said.