Hyundai Oilbank's HPC plant in Daesan, South Chungcheong Province / Courtesy of Hyundai Oilbank

By Kim Jae-heun

Hyundai Oilbank is pursuing various eco-friendly projects to strengthen its carbon reduction policies in Korea and abroad as part of efforts to deal with the climate crisis. In particular, the refiner has taken full-fledged steps to produce eco-friendly chemicals, together with its petrochemical affiliate Hyundai Chemical.

In the first half of this year, Hyundai Chemical started operating its heavy-feed petrochemical complex (HPC) plant, an ultra-large petrochemical facility jointly invested by Hyundai Oilbank and Lotte Chemical. The plant is built on 660,000 square meters of land in Daesan, South Chungcheong Province, and can produce 850,000 tons of ethylene and 500,000 tons of propylene annually.

Hyundai Oilbank aims to lay the foundation for its future green business in chemical materials through the HPC project. The company's production capacity of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), a solar panel material, stands at 300,000 tons, which is the largest for any single production line in Korea. Demand for EVA has recently been increasing rapidly. The oil company plans to further expand its petrochemical downstream business in the future by focusing on eco-friendly chemical materials such as energy, secondary batteries and bio materials.

Hyundai Oilbank is also building a system of reusing plastic through its HPC plant.

Hyundai Chemical signed a memorandum of understanding with Lotte Chemical and LG Household & Health Care on Oct. 17 to promote the eco-friendly plastic business.

The three companies will cooperate under the contract to introduce green plastic products utilizing 100 percent of waste plastic through the pyrolysis process. Pyrolysis refers to decomposition of solid materials through heat.

"Despite the serious ecosystem damage caused by incineration and waste plastics that are difficult to recycle, plastic usage is continuing to increase. We can reduce environmental pollution by replacing existing plastic with bioplastics," a Hyundai Oilbank official said.