MOSCOW (MRC) -- Hyyosung is building an additional plant to manufacture polypropylene (PP), which is used in producing plastic containers, drain pipes, and medical syringes, said the company in its press release.
In order to do so, the company will get a process technology from a global chemical leader.
According to industry sources on Sept. 20, Hyosung will invest about 150 billion won (USD129.09 million) to build the PP 3 plant with an annual production capacity of 200,000 tons at the Yongyeon 1 plant site in Ulsan by 2017. The company has already started the construction in July, and will complete it as early as the first quarter of 2017.
Hyosung made the decision because it has extended its dehydrogenation (DH) plant, which will start operating from the second half of this year, and the demand for PP has increased by more than 300,000 tons annually. Accordingly, the company has also decided to boost the production of PP.
Hyosung has invested a total of 280 billion won (USD241 million) to construct the DH plant in its Yongyeon plant from the end of 2013. The company has decided to extend the production line, since it believes that its profitability will improve in the future due to the decrease in the price of propane, the raw material of polypropylene, from the shale gas development in the U.S.
Once the PP plant is completed, Hyosung will secure a production capacity of more than 500,000 tons at existing 300,000 ton production facilities. In particular, polypropylene from the recent DH plant can be injected into PP so that its price competitiveness will be strengthened.
As MRC informed previously, Hyosung Group developed high-performance thermoplastic polymers called polyketones, which will be used in various types of value-added industrial products. The firm claimed the company is the first in the world to commercialize the material, saying it is one of the greatest achievements in the materials industry, tantamount to the development of nylon by American chemical giant DuPont more than seven decades ago. Unlike many other engineering plastics, polyketones are relatively easy to synthesize and could be derived from inexpensive monomers.
Hyosung Corporation is a Korean industrial conglomerate, founded in 1957. It operates in various fields, including the chemical industry, industrial machinery, IT, trade, and construction.
MRC