PolyMirae, a 50:50 joint venture between LyondellBasell and South Korea’s Daelim, has announced plans to build a PP plant with SK Advanced, which is itself 30% owned by Saudi Arabia’s Advanced Petrochemical.

The 400,000 t/y facility, estimated to cost $420 million, will be located in the southeastern port city of Ulsan in South Korea, and is expected to go into operation in the first half of 2021. Feedstock will be supplied from SK Advanced’s propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant at Ulsan, which produces 600,000 t/y of propylene.

Construction on the project, which is subject to regulatory filings and permitting reviews, is scheduled to start in January 2019. PolyMirae said the plant, one of the largest of its kind in Asia ,will use LyondellBasell’s Spheripol technology.. Output will be sold to customers in both South Korea and the wider Asian region for use in automotive parts and packaging film, along with injection-molded, blow-molded and compounded products.

“Through direct investment or through a joint venture such as PolyMirae, we continue to build production capacity to serve rapidly growing end markets in Asia,” said James Seward, vice president of joint ventures and international marketing at LyondellBasell.

With the addition of this joint venture's capacity, Seward said PolyMirae will ensure that automotive manufacturers in South Korea and throughout Asia will continue to be able to locally source the polypropylene they need to advance the next generation of fuel-efficient vehicles. At the same time, LyondellBasell will gain access to additional export volumes to ensure that its global production footprint continues to grow alongside its customer base.