Recently, the Korea Lichuan Naphtha Cracking Center plans to invest 740 billion won ($666 million) to expand the Lishui steam cracker to increase ethylene and butadiene capacity to meet customer demand for key olefin products.
YNCC is a joint venture between Hanwha Petrochemical and Dalin. It plans to increase its ethylene production capacity by 335,000 tons/year by 2020. After the project is completed, the total ethylene production capacity of YNCC will increase to 2.29 million tons/year. The current 240,000 tons / year increased to 370,000 tons / year.
IHS Markit said that it is expected that the growth rate of ethylene demand in the world will be faster than the world average GDP growth in the next five years. In the past five years, the average growth rate of ethylene consumption in South Korea is about 3%, driven by the growth in demand for polyethylene and ethylene oxide production. In 2016, the consumption reached 7.6 million tons.