South Korean chemical company LG Chem and Enilive – a subsidiary of Italian energy multinational Eni – have announced that work has started on the construction of Korea’s first hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO)/sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plant.
Scheduled for completion in 2027, the facility was being built by the LG Chem and Enilive joint venture, LG-Eni BioRefining, the companies said on 4 August.
Located in LG Chem’s Daesan Chemical Complex in Seosan, Chungcheongnam-do, 80km southwest of Seoul, the companies said the plant would process approximately 400,000 tonnes/year of bio-feedstock using the company’s Ecofining process, which was developed in collaboration with Honeywell UOP.
“With the plants that are already operational in Italy and in the USA, and with new biorefining plants under construction in Italy and Malaysia, the upcoming bio-refining plant in Daesan will contribute to reaching our 2030 target to increase our bio-refining capacity to over 5M tonnes/year, with the potential to produce more than 2M tonnes/year of SAF,” said Shin Hak-cheol, CEO of LG Chem.
According to its website, Eni is active in the natural gas and oil sectors, as well as the co-generated electricity and renewables sectors, including both traditional and bio-refining and chemicals.
LG Chem is active in the petrochemicals, advanced materials and life sciences sectors.
