Hyundai Oilbank accelerates business diversification

Hyundai Oilbank, South Korea’s fourth largest refiner, has intensified its drive towards diversification of its business portfolio upon realizing that its dependence on the oil refinery business is much higher than its competitors, which are engaged in diversified businesses including petrochemical, lubricants and overseas mining industries.
Hyundai Oilbank has committed itself to pioneering new markets, including the lubricant and oil storage businesses. In line with this commitment, Hyundai Oil Bank has invested KRW100 billion (US$92.9 million) for the construction of large-scale storage facilities for petroleum and petroleum products in Ulsan Newport, Korea’s largest industrial port facility. It has also aggressively pursued the construction of BTX plants with higher production capacities. Hyundai Oilbank’s facilities are also designed to produce feedstock for petrochemical products including synthetic textiles and diverse kinds of plastics and fuel additives.
The company has also announced the successful completion of its BTX plant in Daesan, southwest of Seoul, where the production capacity of benzene, toluene and paraxylene (BTX) is expected to triple.
Hyundai Oilbank has injected KRW600 billion (US$553 million) to build a new BTX plant, in a joint venture with Japanese refiner Cosmo Oil Co. BTX production in this new plant is expected to raise Hyundai Oilbank’s annual production from the present 500,000 tons to 1.5 million tons, most of which will be for export.
Earlier this year, the company entered into an agreement with global refiner Shell to establish Hyundai and Shell Base Oil, and to build a lubricant plant with a daily capacity of 20,000 barrels, with commercial production expected to begin in the latter half of 2014. (November 14, 2012)