Self-restructuring
It has been found that LG Chem shut down a plant which the company established for the first time in China. The plant used to produce polyvinyl chloride (PVC) which is a common chemical product and suffered from a glut.
According to the chemical industry on August 3, LG Chem made the Dagu plant in Tianjin, China absorbed by the nearby Bohai plant. The Dagu plant that produced PVC is the first plant founded by LG Chem in China in 1995. An expanding worldwide PVC glut forced the Dagu plant posted over 10 billion won in loss last year.
In addition to shutting down the Dagu plant, LG Chem is overhauling or restructuring production facilities one after another at home and abroad. In July, last year, LG Chem sold off lithium ion battery separation membrance production facilities in the Ochang 2 plant in North Chungcheong Province to Japanese chemical company Toray
Early this year LG Chem scratched off a project to build a petrochemical complex with an annual production capacity of over 1.6 million tons in Kazakhstan. This was because some experts suggested a possibility that chemical products such as ethylene and polyethylene will be oversupplied in the future. In 2011, LG Chemical signed a deal to build a mammoth-sized chemical complex which will be able to produce 830,000 tons of ethylene and 800,000 tons of polyethylene a year by investing a total of US$ 4.2 billion with UCC, a government-run petrochemical company in Kazakhstan.
LG Chem with 20 trillion won in annual sales is concentrating on investing in new growth businesses such as batteries and bio products while cutting down on the proportions of current chemical products that China is also producing with competitive prices. In the same vein, the company is ramping up production of engineering plastics (EP) and high-functional resin (ABS and EPS). It is definitely secondary cells that performed the best.