'5조 투자' 에쓰오일 공장 준공…문 대통령•사우디 왕세자 참석
Staying with the South Korea-Saudi Arabia collaborations.
The leaders of both sides attended a special ceremony at one of Korea's leading oil refining companies.
Kim Hyesung takes us there.
South Korean president Moon Jae-in, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and five hundred business leaders attended a ceremony to celebrate the completion of new petrochemical facilities by Korea's third largest oil refinery company S-Oil.
In 2015, Saudi state-run oil company Saudi Aramco, also the top shareholder of S-Oil with a 63-percent stake, invested four-point-three billion U.S. dollars to build the residue upgrading complex and olefin downstream complex in the southeastern city of Ulsan.
The new complex was completed last year but the ceremony was held Wednesday in light of the Saudi Crown Prince's visit, given its symbolic meaning.
It is Saudi Aramco's biggest investment project in Korea after it became S-Oil's top shareholder.
The new complex will turn lower-value residue into higher value-added petrochemical goods, 405-thousand tons of polypropylene and 300-thousand tons of propylene oxide per year.
S-Oil says it's expected to help diversify its business portfolio and boost profits.
S-Oil and Saudi Aramco also signed an MOU Tuesday to build six-billion-dollar steam cracker and olefin downstream facilities by 2024.
Kim Hyesung, Arirang News.
