Vice Chairman Huh Jin-soo of GS Caltex won the Industrial Merit Gold Tower medal at the 51st Trade Day ceremony held at Coex in southern Seoul on Dec. 5 in recognition of his role in the oil refinery business, exporting 30 trillion won worth of oil products, despite tough conditions surrounding the global oil industry.
Since his takeover of the oil refinery as CEO in January last year, he has made a lot of investments, such as those at the combined resin plant, VGOFCC, in the Yeosu industrial Complex in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, and a combined resin plant in the Czech Republic, all in the area of high value-added production plants for diversification of the oil refinery’s operation.
He has also been busy expanding the oil refinery’s overseas marketing operation and the diversification of crude oil import sources by opening a number of the representative offices or setting up the wholly-owned subsidiaries in such cities and countries as London, Singapore, India and Abu Dhabi, among others.
Despite the adverse conditions in the global oil industry brought about by a steep fall in the price of oil, GS-Caltex has been able to export both refined oil and petrochemical products valued at $26.6 billion to around 50 countries from July of last year to June this year. The figures are about the same as those in the previous year, but they were made in harder conditions, and China expanding its oil refining facilities, reducing the exports of oil products for many oil refineries around the world.
Vice Chairman Huh is a younger brother of Chairman Huh Chang-soo of GS Group; chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI); and a cousin of Chairman Hur Dong-soo, chairman of GS Caltex.
Chairman Hur also won the Industrial Merit Gold Tower medal in 2000 when he was chairman and CEO of the oil refinery firm. It was the first time that the two cousins won the most coveted gold medals on Trade Day in Korea.
The vice chairman entered GS Caltex in 1986 as the chief of the accounting section of the oil refiner and served as the vice president of LG Electronics Chinese subsidiary from 1998 to 2000. He has been with the oil refinery for over 30 years -- except a two-year stint with LG Electronics -- spending most of his years with the oil refiner at its frontlines.
Huh has been engaged in work to reform the risk management manual of the oil refinery, expecting the difficult conditions to worsen next year. The oil refiner has also been at work diversifying crude oil import sources, importing 400,000 barrels of condensate from the U.S. for the first time in August, followed by imports of crude oil from Alaska in October, last year.
The vice chairman intends to continue to make heavy investments in R&D activities to seek new oil products. As a result, the oil refinery developed bio energy technologies to produce bio-buthanol and carbon textile, LFT and they are in the stage of mass production. The oil company supplied the products to Kia Motors, which used them for its cars with sun roofs -- the Sorrento and the Panorama -- for the first time, to signal the diversification of the oil refiner’s business territory.
Other gold medal winners include President Han Sang-beom of LG Display Co., a veteran of more than 32 years in the semiconductor chip and display sectors, who had a huge hand in boosting the company’s annual revenue to over 27 trillion won in 2013 from just 1.5 billion won in 1995. Since taking over the company’s management as the CEO in 2012, he managed to set a record for the company, turning a profit in nine consecutive quarters, making daring investments in R&D activities, from three to four trillion won every year, and hiring talented R&D staff for the development of next generation display products.
President Cho Soon-tae of Green Cross Co. won the Industrial Merit Gold Tower medal for his role in leading the company to develop various vaccines and drugs for the treatment of rare diseases, among the new drugs the company developed to keep people in Korea healthy. Under his management, Green Cross expanded its exports of pharmaceutical products, namely vaccines including flu vaccines and blood products, to around 50 countries, which amounted to about $1.6 billion won from July last year to June this year, making a great contribution to Korea’s exports of pharmaceutical products.
