Aiming to Become World's 7th Chemical Company

Lotte Group's Chemical Business Unit plans to invest about 3.7 trillion won in Korea by 2022 and create 30,000 jobs.

Lotte Group's Chemical Business Unit (BU) plans to invest about 3.7 trillion won in Korea by 2022 and create 30,000 jobs. Based on this, it plans to boost its global sales to 50 trillion won by 2030, becoming the world's seventh-largest chemical company.

Shin Dong-bin, chairman of the Lotte Group, is growing the chemical business as a future growth engine for the group. Shin recently attended the inauguration ceremony of the Louisiana plant in the United States and held an exclusive meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.

"We will expand production facilities in Korea and invest in chemical startups, thus contributing to boosting domestic consumption," Lotte Chemical announced on May 27.

On May 24, Lotte Chemical signed an investment agreement with Hyundai Oilbank to build a heavy feed petrochemical complex (HPC) at a combined investment of 2.7 trillion won ($2.5 billion).

The new facility will produce 750,000 tons of ethylene, 750,000 tons of polyethylene and 400,000 tons of propylene per annum. It will significantly reduce manufacturing costs as it uses oil residue as raw material.

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"Lotte Chemical is also expanding production facilities at its Ulsan and Yeosu factories along with the construction of an HPC," said Im Byeong-yeon, CEO of Lotte Chemical. “Based on the expansion of global production bases and domestic investment, the company aims to grow into the world's seventh-largest chemical company with 50 trillion won in sales."

Lotte Chemical has been expanding its meta-xylene (MeX) plant in Ulsan, Korea and Polycarbonate (PC) plant in Yeosu in Korea by investing approximately 370 billion won since May 2017. Since January 2018, Lotte Chemical has been building purified isophthalic acid (PIA) production facilities in the Ulsan plant with investment of approximately 50 billion won.

In addition, Lotte Fine Chemical, a chemical affiliate of Lotte Group, announced that it would invest about 115 billion won in its Ulsan plant, and Lotte BP Chemicals is planning to expand production facilities in its Ulsan plant.

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