S-Oil says Ulsan $7 billion petrochemical project is '55 percent complete'

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S-Oil says Ulsan $7 billion petrochemical project is '55 percent complete'

Published: 17 Feb. 2025, 16:24

SARAH CHEA
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Construction is under way for S-Oil's $7 billion Shaheen petrochemical project in Ulsan. [S-OIL]

S-Oil's $7 billion Shaheen petrochemical project is well underway for completion in the first half of 2026, the Saudi Arabia-backed Korean oil refinery said Monday.

The project, with Shaheen meaning falcon in Arabic, is now 55 percent complete in Ulsan, with official operation slated for the second half of this year.

It remarks Korea's largest foreign investment in a single project. S-Oil is 63.4 percent owned by Saudi Arabia’s state-run Aramco.

The plant will have a capacity of 1.8 million tons of ethylene, the feedstock for polyethylene, the raw material for plastic and synthetic materials, as well as some 770,000 tons of propylene, and 200,000 tons of butadiene.

Construction is under way for S-Oil's $7 billion Shaheen petrochemical project in Ulsan. [S-OIL]

When complete, the basic chemicals will be supplied to nearby Korean downstream businesses through a pipeline.

“Downstream businesses will be able to save transportation costs within the value chain through a timely and stable supply of feedstock, which will eventually create a competitive petrochemical industry cluster,” S-Oil said. “This will work in favor of the local economy and national industrial competitiveness in the longer term.”

S-Oil is also building a thermal crude-to-chemicals facility, which converts crude directly into petrochemical feedstock, as well as a steam cracker that produces ethylene, near the Ulsan complex.

BY SARAH CHEA [[email protected]]