The Korea Petrochemical Industry Association (KPIA) hosted a New Year’s event on the evening of Jan. 18 for the members of the association at the Hotel Lotte with over 200 dignitaries from the government and related industries in attendance led by Minister Hong Suk-woo of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, President Cha Hwa-youp of SK Global Chemical, Chairman Chong Bum-shick of the KPIA, President Hur Soo-young of Lotte Chemical, and President Shin Woo-sung of BASF Korea, among others.

Minister Hong, in his congratulatory speech, gave high praise to the people in the petrochemical industry for their contributions to Korea’s posting of over $1 trillion in international trade for a second consecutive year last year, making Korea the eighth largest trading nation in the world.

The minister said both the government and the industry should get their heads together to gather ideas for drawing up measures to cope with the prolonged slowdown in the industry around the world due to reduced demand, pushes by China and countries of the Middle East to market their petrochemical products on the global market, and increases in shale oil production in North America.

Hong went on to say that the ministry will try to share the warmth of the resurgent economy with people by perking up the economy with the spirit of mutual survival and reform, asking for positive support from the petrochemical industry this year.

Chairman Chung, in his New Year’s address, said the petrochemical industry has done a lot toward Korea’s achieving $1 trillion in international trade for a second year in a row last year and climbed a step up the global ladder through successful achievements in the areas of new recycled materials, new and recycled energy, and environmentally friendly materials.

The new year will also be a challenging year for the industry as it is called upon to expand investments in the development of technology for its future growth, increase exports, continually push for shared growth with SMEs, make social contributions, as well as nurture its future manpower.

Participating members of the association resolved to make 6.5 trillion won in investments in the new year and export $46.6 billion worth of their products. The industry’s investments totaled 7.4 trillion won in 2011 and 6.3 trillion won in 2012, while exports reached $45.6 billion worth of its products in 2011 and $45.9 billion in 2012.

The Korean petrochemical industry has accomplished tremendous development and has supported the high economic growth of the country. Korea has become one of the prominent producers in the world petrochemical industry with overall annual ethylene capacity of 5.7 million tons and various accompanying downstream plants.

The annual production capacity of the petrochemical facilities in Korea in the late 1970s was 1.5 million tons of ethylene from the naptha cracker and downstream facilities in Ulsan. At the end of 1979, the second petrochemical complex with an annual production capacity of 3.5 billion tons was constructed in Yeochon. Between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the third petrochemical complex was completed alongside massive new and expansion projects. Further new and expansion projects were implemented continuously and currently 5.7 million tons of ethylene are produced annually, which is 3 to 4 times the production capacity of the late 1970s.

From the 5.7 million tons, an annual 10,290 thousand tons of general purpose resins such as LDPE, HDPE, PP, PVC, PS/ABS for use in synthetic resins, and an annual 6,885 thousand tons of Caprolactam, AN, TPA/DMT, EG for making synthetic fiber raw material are now produced.