At SK Global Chemical’s ‘Brand New Day’ event on 31 August, the company unveiled a new corporate identity and announced its ambitious goal of transforming into the world’s ‘largest eco-friendly urban oil field company based on recycling plastic waste’.
”The core direction of SK Geo Centric’s financial story is ‘geo-centric, eco-friendly innovation’,” said CEO Na Kyung-soo.
This will be achieved first by securing the facilities and capability to process 900,000 tons of plastic waste per year, - ‘ equal to the company’s annual domestic plastic production volume,’ he said - ramping up to 2.5 million t/y by 2027. Another KRW 5 trillion (EUR 3.6 billion) will be invested domestically and internationally in expanding the portfolio of eco-friendly materials. In this way, the company will reduce their reliance on plastic made from virgin petroleum and actively pursue the use of bio-based oi and pyrolysis oils.
Production capability for these green materials will increase from 500,000 tons per year to 1.9 million tons per year by 2025.
The company has signed MOUs with domestic and international partners to secure the technology needed to build advanced recycling capacity while continuing to develop its own pyrolysis post-processing technology. Collaboration with overseas partners offering chemical recycling technologies such as solvent extraction, depolymerisation and pyrolysis, for the recycling of single and composite plastics has been sought in the form of joint ventures and equity investment. The company plans to build and expand factories in and outside Korea.
By collaborating with the government and small and medium enterprises throughout the entire process, from collecting and selecting plastic waste to mechanical/chemical recycling, SK Geo Centric will build a recycling cluster that can process PE, PP, PET, and complex materials.
“The plastic waste problem could turn into an opportunity,” said Na Kyung-soo.
“The plastic recycling market will grow by 12% by 2030, and the plastic waste market size is expected to reach 600 trillion Korean won by 2050. This implies that there is much room for growth,” he clarified.
“In the year 2025, we will create 600 billion Korean won in EBITDA from the eco-friendly and recycling sector to offset existing businesses, and also become a completely green company, even from a financial standpoint.”