SK Geo Centric to build Asia's biggest advanced recycling plant with British partner

South Korea's SK Geo Centric, the green chemical subsidiary of SK Innovation, will build Asia's largest advanced recycling (pyrolysis) plant in the southern coastal city of Ulsan. The facility will have annual capacity of 66,000 tons and be built under a partnership with British plastic pyrolysis company Plastic Energy.

The Korean company on Wednesday said it concluded a heads of agreement (HOA) at the hotel Grand Walkerhill Seoul on building a pyrolysis plant with the British company at Ulsan Recycling Cluster.

The signing ceremony saw the attendance of leading executives from both companies including SK Geo Centric CEO Na Kyung-soo and Plastic Energy CEO Carlos Montreal.

Founded in 2012, the British company runs two pyrolysis plants in Spain, one in Seville and the other in Almeira.

Through the second half of 2025, SK Geo Centric will use an estimated 13,000 square meters of land at the cluster to build Asia's largest pyrolysis plant based on plastic waste treatment standards with an annual capacity of 66,000 tons.

The company will also use its own technology and know-how to build a post-processing plant for pyrolysis oil with annual capacity of 100,000 tons at the Ulsan site.

Injection of pyrolysis oil produced at the pyrolysis plant into the post-treatment process will boost quality, and the process will allow such oil to be used in a range of petrochemical production processes.

Pyrolysis oil is crude oil made by heating plastic waste and discarded vinyl to high temperatures.

Petrochemical industry sources said the global market for chemical recycling through pyrolysis oil is expected to grow an average 17% per year from 700,000 tons in 2020 to 3.3 million tons in 2030.

CEO Na said, “We are pleased to work with Plastic Energy, which is excellent in pyrolysis, to establish the largest pyrolysis plant in Asia," adding, "SK Geo Centric remains committed to expanding cooperation to achieve a circular economy."

Write to Ik-Hwan Kim at lovepen@hankyung.com