SEOUL, South Korea—Kumho Petrochemical Co. Ltd. has signed an MOU with SK Geo Centric Co. Ltd. and Tongsuh Petrochemical Corp. Ltd. for the establishment of a sustainable bio-based raw material supply chain.
Under the partnership, the three companies have agreed to cooperate in converting monomers acrylonitrile (AN) and butadiene (BD) from the existing raw material supply chain into bio-monomers.
Bio-monomers, Kumho Petrochemical said, are produced from bio-naphtha by using "environmentally friendly" raw materials such as canola oil and waste cooking oil.
Under the agreed structure, Tongsuh Petrochemical will supply bio-AN using SK Geo Centric's bio-propylene as raw material, and SK Geo Centric will supply bio-BD to Kumho Petrochemical, respectively.
Through the MOU, Kumho Petrochemical said it aims to secure a bio-monomer supply chain as part of its plans to expand its environmentally friendly product portfolio.
The strategy includes obtaining ISCC-Plus certification for synthetic rubbers—SBR, NBR, HSR, SBL, NBL—and styrenic resins within the first quarter of this year.
Last year, Kumho Petrochemical obtained ISCC-Plus certification on four tire-use elastomers—SSBR, HBR, LBR, NdBR—manufactured from its Yeosu synthetic rubber plant.
The South Korean polymer maker added that it "is expecting to expand to a wider range of products this year."
"Kumho Petrochemical will accelerate the diversification of its environmentally friendly product portfolio based on a sustainable bio raw material supply chain," said Kumho Petrochemical CEO Baek Jong-hoon. "We expect that the areas in which the three companies gathered today can cooperate in the petrochemical industry will further expand."
