DL E&C

Daelim Exports Petrochemical Manufacturing Technology to the US

Daelim Vice Chairman Lee Hae-wook (fifth from left) and Lubrizol Chairman James Hambrick (fourth from left) shake hands after signing the polybutene license export agreement.

Daelim announced on August 23, 2015 that it is exporting a petrochemical technology to the US, the home of the petrochemical industry, for the first time in Korea by signing a polybutene license agreement with Lubrizol. The signing ceremony was held at Lubrizol’s head office located in Cleveland, US on August 21, 2015, with both companies’ executives and employees attending including Daelim Group Vice Chairman Lee Hae-wook, Daelim Petrochemical Business Division CEO Kim Jae-yul, Lubrizol Chairman James Hambrick, and Lubrizol President Dan Sheets.

Highly reactive polybutene is regarded as an essential raw material to meet environmental standards and improve product performance in manufacturing lubricants and fuel additives. The technology developed by Daelim has the advantage of producing highly reactive polybutene using low-priced C4 residue for the first time ever in the world. It was named one of the 70 representative achievements of scientific technology by the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning during the 70th anniversary of the National Liberation Day.

Lubrizol Corporation plans to build a polybutene plant in Houston using the license provided by Daelim. Lubrizol has laid the foundation for cementing its status as a leading lubricant additives company in the world market. The highly reactive polybutene manufactured in the plant will be used as core fuel for Lubrizol to manufacture lubricants and fuel additives with high performance. Daelim will receive a certain ratio of polybutene sales as licensing fee from Lubrizol.

As a company whose equity is 100% owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Lubrizol is the top company in the world’s lubricant additives market. The agreement began with Lubrizol actively expressing its intention to purchase Daelim’s technological prowess. Based on the agreement, both companies decided to cooperate actively in the lubricant field by signing the MOU for comprehensive business cooperation.

The agreement is Korea’s first case of exporting the core technology of the petrochemical manufacturing process to the US, the home of the petrochemical industry, 40 years after the petrochemical technology was introduced to Korea in the 1970s. The agreement puts the Korean petrochemical industry one level higher from a mere petrochemical products producer by exporting the source technology and leading the market.

Since it succeeded in the commercial production of polybutene for general use for the first time ever in Korea in 1993, Daelim has been building up technological capabilities by succeeding in the development of highly reactive polybutene in 2010. Daelim boasts of the world’s top technological capabilities in the polybutene field, having developed the technology through which both polybutene for general use and highly reactive polybutene can be produced in a single plant for the first time in the world. Daelim will become the No. 1 polybutene manufacturer in the world in terms of production capacity and sales in November 2016 when the expansion of Daelim’s polybutene plant is completed.
 
“The export of the license is the result of our technology being acknowledged in the world. We will consolidate our status as the world’s top polybutene manufacturer by securing a bridgehead in the US market,” Daelim CEO Kim Jae-yul said. 

Executives and employees of Daelim Group and Lubrizol pose for a commemorative photograph after signing the polybutene license export agreement (Daelim Petrochemical Business Division CEO Kim Jae-yul, third from left, Lubrizol Chairman James Hambrick, fourth from left, Daelim Vice Chairman Lee Hae-wook, fifth from left, and Lubrizol President Dan Sheets, sixth from left)