On the 22nd, joint venture agreement signed with Zhongtai Co., Ltd. of China for high-purity rare gas production corporation
POSCO Group is expanding its rare gas business for semiconductors.
POSCO Holdings announced on the 27th that it signed a joint venture agreement on the 22nd of this month with Zhongtai Cryogenic Technology (hereinafter Zhongtai) in China to produce high-purity rare gases. Zhongtai is a gas-related equipment manufacturing and engineering specialist company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in China. It possesses specialized technology in the gas sector, including rare gas production facilities and air separation units.
High-purity rare gases refer to neon (Ne), xenon (Xe), and krypton (Kr) gases with a purity of 99.999%, mainly used in advanced industries such as semiconductors, displays, and satellite propulsion systems.
To respond to the growing domestic demand for high-purity rare gases, POSCO Holdings will establish a high-purity rare gas production plant with Zhongtai, with an annual capacity of 130,000 Nm3 (normal cubic meters). The plant is planned to break ground within 2024 at the Donghoan site in Gwangyang and commence commercial production by the end of 2025. The joint venture shares are 75.1% for POSCO Holdings and 24.9% for Zhongtai, and the annual capacity of 130,000 Nm3 can supply 52% of the domestic semiconductor market.
Through the joint venture agreement, POSCO Holdings will stably supply crude rare gases produced at POSCO’s steelworks to the joint venture’s production plant, while Zhongtai will provide the equipment and technology to produce high-purity rare gases from crude rare gases.
Since January last year, POSCO has been commercially producing crude neon gas (Ne), the raw material for high-purity rare gases, and plans to gradually expand production items to include crude xenon (Xe) and crude krypton (Kr) starting in 2024.
Rare gases, which exist only in trace amounts in the air, require large air separation units capable of processing large volumes of air for production. Until now, domestic companies have mainly imported rare gases from countries such as the United States, China, and Ukraine.
With POSCO Holdings actively entering domestic production of rare gases, it will be possible to localize the supply of high-purity rare gases for semiconductors, which have mostly depended on imports, thereby contributing to supply chain stabilization. In particular, POSCO Holdings’ new business investment is significant as it was made possible by the government’s regulatory innovation support for the Donghoan site in Gwangyang in April, enabling swift decision-making and investment progress.
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