South Korea's Hyundai OilBank is going to stop exporting GPC as from July, a company source revealed.
The company would reserve all self-produced GPC as burning fuel for its new residue fluid catalytic cracker, which would be put on stream at its Daesan Refinery in the near term, he explained.
Upon its supply quit, China would expect no South Korean GPC then, he said, adding that Hyundai’s Daesan Refinery was South Korea's only GPC exporter to China.
The refinery normally yielded less than 400,000mt of GPC per year and exported 40,000-50,000mt to China. Its cargoes were mainly sponge GPC with low ash and high sulfur contents. They were of similar qualities to those from Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp and Sinopec's Qingdao Refining & Chemical Co.
Recently, South Korean-originated GPC were imported at US$170/mt on CFR China basis and traded at Yuan 1,450/mt on China spot market.
Hyundai OilBanks is the first privately owned petrochemical corporation in South Korea. It first set foot in oil refining business in 1993.
