GS Caltex won the $25 Billion Export Tower Award at the 49th Trade Day ceremony, the top award among the export awards presented to firms and individuals that made outstanding contributions to the growth of the nation’s exports at a ceremony held at COEX in Seoul.

Chairman Hur Dong-soo said he was overwhelmed by the award, recalling that it was 40 years ago that the oil company won the $200 million Export Tower Award and now it has the $25 billion award.

The award was something very special to him because he is about to let his cousin Huh Jin-soo to take over his job as the CEO of the first privately-owned oil refinery in Korea where he spent over 40 years. The award, in fact, was a very appropriate one that Hur will take as a memento for his role in making oil products the top export item for Korea. He has been with GS Caltex for long enough to see it from the early stages of growth and development to become the global oil refinery it is today.  A graduate of Yonsei University with a degree in chemistry, Hur went to the University of Wisconsin in the United States to earn a doctorate in chemical engineering. He then worked for Chevron Research until 1973 before returning home to work for GS Caltex, then known as Honam Oil Refinery.

He held various positions at the oil refinery in production, planning, and other areas before taking over as CEO in 1994. He has been known as “Mr. Oil,” the nickname he won due to his deep knowledge of the workings of the petrochemical industry in Korea coupled with his academic background in chemical engineering.

Hur knew that the domestic oil market could only bring limited growth for his oil refinery and would, therefore, have to look overseas for further growth. He began to invest heavily to diversify the market for his oil refinery, including exports.

Following the Export Day ceremony, Hur met with reporters and told them that it has been a monumental achievement to turn the oil refining industry into an export industry while not a drop of oil is found in Korean soil. He said he cannot forget government support in this historical achievement, but those in the oil industry worked hard to achieve it and deserve recognition.

GS Caltex opened a new history in the oil refining industry in Korea as the first privately-owned oil refinery with the capacity to take care of 30 percent of the oil products required in Korea annually, making it a locomotive for Korea’s economic takeoff over the four decades of its operation.

In particular, the oil refinery with its globally competitive oil refining facilities has been able to produce oil products and petrochemical raw materials and export them overseas, recovering 85 percent of crude oil import costs. The oil refinery has the capacity to refine 775,000 barrels of oil daily, runs 3,000 service stations around the country along with 400 recharging facilities to supply oil and oil products at competitive prices on a stable basis, and exports 60 percent of its refined oil products overseas annually to recover foreign exchange spent to import crude oil. The oil refinery is also a bunker-C oil cracking facility, which produces light oil products such as gasoline, kerosene, and diesel, and a heavy oil cracking facility that handles 215,000 barrels of heavy oil and includes a 416,000 bpd desulfurizing facility to cope with the rapidly changing market trends in the oil refining industry.

The third heavy oil cracking facility at GS Caltex that went online in December 2010 has the capacity to turn heavy residual oil products like asphalt into diesel, which is the first such facility in Asia and the seventh in the world. The fourth heavy oil cracking facility being built at the oil refinery will boost the ratio of light oil production to 35.3 percent, meaning almost all of the crude oil refined at the oil refinery would be turned into light oil.