MOSCOW (MRC) -- A fire broke out at SK Energy’s Ulsan plant on Wednesday morning, 12 January, and a fire brigade was dispatched to extinguish it, according to Archyde.
At 6:22 am that day, the fire broke out in the battery room energy storage system (ESS) of SK Energy’s Ulsan plant in Gosa-dong, Nam-gu, Ulsan. This storage device is a system that supplies power to facilities for emergencies when power supplied from KEPCO to factory facilities is cut off.
Upon receiving the report, the fire brigade issued the first stage of response, mobilizing all fire department personnel and equipment, and dispatched 89 firefighters and 29 firefighting equipment to the scene. The fire brigade is carrying out firefighting activities while blocking the spread of flames from the fire station to other oil refineries.
The fire has not yet spread to other facilities. However, the fire brigade said that it would take some time for the complete extinguishment to take place due to the characteristics of the facilities at the fire site. As of 8:20 a.m. that day, the big fire has been put out, and work is being done to clean up the fire and remove the flame.
It is reported that there were no casualties in the fire that day.
We remind that, as MRC informed earlier, South Korea's SK Global Chemical shut its small No. 1 naphtha-fed steam cracker in Ulsan permanently on Dec. 10, 2020, due to aging-related issues. The No. 1 steam cracker was able to produce 200,000 mt/year of ethylene and 140,000 mt/year of propylene. The company will keep normal operations of its No. 2 steam cracker at the same location. The No. 2 unit is able to produce 660,000 mt/year of ethylene, 350,000 mt/year of propylene and 110,000 mt/year of butadiene.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,265,290 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2021, up by 14% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,363,850 tonnes in January-November, 2021, up by 25% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
SK energy began in 1962 as Korea Oil Corporation, the first oil refinery in the country. The company has since contributed to national economic development by producing, exporting, and distributing petroleum products. SK energy's Ulsan Complex can process up to 840,000 barrels of crude oil per day, supplying petroleum products to both domestic and international markets.
MRC