【Frontiers in HaiChuan Chemical Technology】Includes 1.8 million tons per year of mixed feedstock pyrolysis; the crude oil-to-chemicals project in Ulsan, South Korea, is set to go into operation in 2026

Thread Content

South Korea’s Ulsan crude oil-to-chemicals project to go into operation in 2026 2025-02-24 13:43:06 On February 17, South Korean company S-Oil stated that its Shaheen crude oil-to-chemicals project in Ulsan is 55% complete, with commercial operations expected to begin in the second half of 2026. Saudi Aramco has invested $7 billion in South Korea’s Ulsan to build the Shaheen petrochemical complex through its Korean holding company S-Oil. This complex includes a facility for cracking mixed feedstocks with an annual capacity of 1.8 million tons, as well as an LLDPE plant with an annual capacity of 880,000 tons, and a HDPE plant with an annual capacity of 440,000 tons. The facility will convert crude oil directly into petrochemical feedstocks such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and naphtha, with the cracking furnace expected to recover waste heat for power generation in the refinery. This project is Saudi Aramco’s largest investment in South Korea to date. Saudi Aramco stated that this will be the first commercialization of the company’s Thermal Crude to Chemicals (TC2C) technology. Construction on this project began in March 2023. S-Oil currently produces a range of petrochemical products and fuels at its Unsan plant, including benzene, mixed xylene, ethylene, methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), p-xylene, polypropylene, propylene, propylene oxide, biodiesel, as well as bio-based jet fuel and other bio-derived products. S-Oil plans to supply raw materials to downstream Korean petrochemical companies mainly through pipelines.