SEOUL, South Korea, June 25, 2018 – PolyMirae Company Ltd. and SK Advanced today announced they are forming a joint venture to expand PolyMirae’s capacity with a new 400,000 tons/year polypropylene plant in Ulsan, South Korea.

The new manufacturing joint venture expects to begin construction on the plant in January 2019 and begin production in 2021. The new plant will use Spheripol polypropylene technology licensed by LyondellBasell and will be supplied with propylene from the nearby SK Advanced’s Propane Dehydrogenation (PDH) plant. The project will go through the relevant regulatory filing and permitting reviews soon.

“We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with SK Advanced, given the exceptional operational reliability of their PDH plant,” said Martino Gabellich, CEO of PolyMirae. “We are going to use the additional polypropylene volume produced by the joint venture to further support and expand our customer portfolio in the automotive, packaging, textile and consumer segments.”

“PolyMirae is an excellent partner in the joint venture because it has a leading reputation in the PP market for its specialty products as well as longstanding excellence in manufacturing and marketing” said Chul-Jin Kim, CEO of SK Advanced. “With successful integration of value chain from propane to polypropylene business through JV partnerships, SK Advanced will secure a stable outlet for propylene and further strengthen competitiveness of its gas chemical business which its mother company, SK Gas has been expanding from its LPG base.”

PolyMirae is a 50 / 50 joint venture between LyondellBasell and Daelim, and currently operates four PP Spheripol production lines in Yeosu with a total capacity of 700,000 tons/year.

SK Advanced is a joint venture among SK Gas, Advanced Petrochemical Company and Petrochemical Industries Company, and operates a propane dehydrogenation plant in Ulsan with a capacity of 600,000 tons/year.

About PolyMirae

PolyMirae is a joint venture between Daelim and LyondellBasell Industries, both of which are well respected companies worldwide, and is a leading polypropylene production company in Korea. With Daelim's outstanding accumulated on-site operational experienceand LyondellBasell's core technologies and worldwide sales network, PolyMirae was founded on September, 2000 in order to produce and supply the best polypropylene in Asia.

About SK Advanced

SK Advanced is propylene production/sales company, established in September, 2014 through a spin-off from SK Gas. Located in Ulsan, South Korea, its PDH plant produces 600 K ton/year of production capacity. The plant started commercial operation in April 2016, and performs at a high operation rate, by applying newest CB&I technology.

This year’s event has been focusing on the theme “IT’S IN MY HANDS”.

The program included a contest for employees, to discover certain areas of the current safety procedures which require improvement and suggest alternatives, as well a contest for subcontractors to submit work plans and risk assessment reports for evaluation.

Two companies , Youngjin Technics and Pacific Machine and Technology, were each awarded gold and silver medal, in the respective order, at the subcontractor contest.

For crisis management and response training, on-site response drills took place , including a firefighting drill and a rescue & emergency medical service (EMS) training.

ANEX (Asia Nonwovens Exhibition and Conference), one of the world’s biggest nonwoven exhibitions in the world took place in Tokyo, Japan from June 6th to 8th. ANEX is one of the three biggest nonwoven exhibitions in the world, alongside INDEX of Europe hosted by EDANA (European Disposables and Nonwovens Association) and IDEAD of the U.S. hosted by INDA (Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry). More than 300 companies from all around the world participated in the exhibition to present their products and technologies and discussed the future of the industry.

Executive Director BH Kim and his team attended this year’s ANEX to review development trends of the market and more specifically also to meet with current and perspective clients.

PolyMirae is bringing to the market Moplen EP310J HP developed for highly functional retort pouch films, a fast growing application in the food packaging market in Asia.

This product has excellent transparency, thermal stability and surface properties after sterilization. This product is expected to contribute to the quality of newly designed standing pouch packaging and to allow a faster growth in the market for this application.

CEO Magazine has interviewed recently Martino Gabellich, PolyMirae CEO.

The interview provides insights on PolyMirae’s strategy and on the role polypropylene has in our everyday life. It talks also about the role of technology and product development in the company’s differentiation strategy.

CEO Magazine is a prestigious publication with a dedicated following of senior management and investors. Distribution and readership is a powerful mix of the most influential and affluent business personnel in Asia. The CEO Magazine brand has a global reach of over 250,000 people.

To read the full interview, please access the following link.

https://www.theceomagazine.com/executive-interviews/chemicals/martino-gabellich/

PolyMirae has successfully commercialized Metocene MF650W as a raw material for premium wet wipes, thanks to its intrinsic properties such as ultra-high melt flow rate, narrow molecular weight distribution, high purity and safety for the human body.

The high-quality wet wipes based on this product have shown superior uniformity and strength, compared to existing more conventional products.

With this new addition, PolyMirae delivers to its customers a broad PP Metocene portfolio, to produce a variety of premium applications ranging from automotive compounds to non-woven products.