"Expecting to Develop Competitiveness Enhancement Measures Through Fair Assessment"
The three major petrochemical companies in the Ulsan Industrial Complex have agreed to commission an external consulting agency to develop a business restructuring strategy. Following a self-regulatory agreement among ten petrochemical firms in August, additional agreements between individual companies are being made, indicating that the restructuring of the industry is expected to accelerate.
According to industry sources on October 3, Korea Petrochemical Ind, SK Geocentric, and S-OIL signed a "Letter of Intent (LOI) for the Restructuring of the Ulsan Petrochemical Complex" on September 30. These companies plan to select an external consulting agency to seek advice on business restructuring strategies aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of the Ulsan Industrial Complex. Through this process, they aim to obtain an objective assessment regarding the scale and method of reducing naphtha cracking center (NCC) operations, as well as strategies for transitioning to high value-added products. Based on these results and after further coordination, they plan to submit the final business restructuring plan to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy by the end of the year.
This is reportedly the first time that individual companies have entered into agreements for restructuring since the industry-wide restructuring efforts began in earnest with the self-regulatory agreement among ten major petrochemical companies in August.
The government, emphasizing the need for rapid restructuring, has urged companies to actively negotiate, aiming to produce concrete results from inter-company discussions within this month at the latest. On September 19, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jeonggwan visited the Ulsan Petrochemical Complex to call for swift restructuring and to express the government's strong commitment to support these efforts. It has been reported that the consensus among the company representatives for this agreement was formed following Minister Kim's visit.
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