S Korea’s Lotte mulls capacity expansion at Yeosu

According to media reports, South Korea’s Lotte Chemical Corp is conducting preliminary plans to expand the capacity of its naphtha cracking center at Yeosu in order to increase competitiveness in the face of growing competition from China.

The company will reportedly aim to start construction in the first half of 2017 but no information was given about how much the capacity will be increased.

Currently, the unit has a production capacity of 1 million tons/year of ethylene.

Another South Korean chemical company, LG Chem Ltd. also said in October that they would make an investment worth of $260 million to raise the production capacity of its 230,000 tons/year plant at Daesan to 1.27 million tons/year of ethylene by 2019.