Explosion at South Korea’s S-Oil plant

An explosion occurred at a refinery belonging to S-Oil Corporation in Ulsan, South Korea at about 9 PM on Thursday, 19 May 2022, leaving at least one fatality and several injured. Relevant authorities are investigating the cause of the incident.

Market sources said that the explosion did not cause any physical damage to the downstream polyolefins plants at the adjacent location but might result in a temporary feedstock supply disruption. Meanwhile, units that might be directly affected include: 

The production status of the 405,000 tons/year PP plant is unknown at the time of this report; however, industry sources expected the line to operate as usual using the propylene from the storage tank.

“If the storage tank is depleted before the producer could restart the refinery and the FCC unit, it is very likely that the PP line will be taken offline,” a market source added.

S-Oil also owns another RFCC unit at the same location, which could produce 200,000 tons/year of propylene. CommoPlast could not ascertain the production status of this cracker at the moment.

Stay tuned for further updates!