S-Oil's $7B Shaheen project nears completion, aims to revive Korea's sagging petrochemical industry 

S-Oil said Monday that its $7 billion Shaheen project is undergoing a final verification process before scheduled commercial operation in early next year, which could help strengthen the global competitiveness of a Korean petrochemical industry that has been grappling with eroding profitability.

The Ulsan factory will mark the world's first commercial application of Aramco's Thermal Crude-to-Chemicals (TC2C) technology, which converts crude oil and low-value refinery byproducts into petrochemical feedstock.

The process combines high-efficiency equipment with optimized operations to improve raw material as well as energy efficiency, with design refinements cutting projected carbon emissions by more than 20 percent from the original plan.

The facility's ability to draw on a range of feedstocks will also reduce dependence on any single source — a flexibility that has taken on renewed importance amid recent global disruptions of naphtha supply due to the Iran war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz.

Once operational, the plant will produce 3.2 million tons of petrochemical products annually, including 1.8 million tons of ethylene and 750,000 tons of propylene.

Ethylene, propylene and other base olefins not used internally will be piped to downstream manufacturers in Ulsan.

“Since Ulsan currently relies partly on imports to meet demand for such base olefins, the project is expected to help replace those imports with domestic supply, strengthening the region's feedstock self-sufficiency,” a spokesperson for S-Oil said. 

“We are currently undergoing mechanical completion verification, after which we'll move to trial operations before commercial startup early next year. 

BY SARAH CHEA   [[email protected]]