SK Innovation soon to finalize spin-off of Incheon complex and oil trading unit

SK Innovation, South Korea’s top oil refiner, plans to finalize the spin-off of its Incheon refinery complex and the oil trading division at a shareholders’ meeting this month. Its board of directors has already endorsed the spin-off.
Under the plan, the Incheon complex and the oil trading division will be fully owned subsidiaries of SK Innovation. The two companies would not be listed.
Under the reshuffle, the Incheon complex will focus on higher margin petrochemical products.
SK Innovation’s petrochemical unit is SK Global Chemical, but the investment for a planned paraxylene plant will come from the petroleum unit, SK Energy, which controls the Incheon complex. SK announced last year that it will invest approximately US$1.4 billion in the plant.
SK Energy was renamed SK Innovation and the petroleum and petrochemical businesses were spun off into wholly owned subsidiaries — SK Energy and SK Global Chemical—on January 1, 2011. SK Lubricants later became another wholly owned subsidiary.