Hur Dong-soo

By Park Si-soo

Most people might think that domestic oil companies would be dollar spenders since Korea doesn’t produce crude oil but the reality is that they are one of the country’s top exporters as shown by GS Caltex.

The country’s second-largest refiner said of late that more than three fifths of its sales were made in overseas markets over the first quarter of this year, which will be announced next month.

The expected performance is in line with that of the firm last year ㅡ nearly 63 percent of its 47.9 trillion won ($42 billion) revenue, or 30.2 trillion won, came from exports of petroleum and petrochemical products.

In recognition of the remarkable achievement, the company, headed by Chairman Hur Dong-soo, was given a covetous prize from the Korea International Trade Association in December.

The company is trying to push the envelope to further reshape itself as an export-driven firm with aggressive investment in facilities not only in Korea but also many other countries.

“The fast-changing global economy and continuing financial crisis have galvanized GS Caltex to increase exports,” an official said. “We will continue to establish and upgrade facilities in pursuit of a diversified product portfolio.”

The refiner is now building a polymer compounds producing factory in the Czech Republic, which is a first venture among local refiners. It expects the new factory to generate additional sales of around 100 billion won from 2014.

Tapping into the Chinese market in 2006, GS Caltex is operating a plant with an annual capacity of 45,000 tons in Langfang, Hebei Province, supplying polymer compounds to China and neighboring nations such as Russia, Taiwan and Thailand. It also founded another Chinese unit in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province last year.

Early this month, GS Caltex signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Japan-based Showa Shell and Taiyo Oil to expand its paraxylene (PX) manufacturing facility in Yeosu, a southern coastal town in Korea. In the MOU, the three companies agreed to increase the facility’s annual PX output to 2.35 million tons by later 2014, up from the current 1.35 million tons.

The firm, an affiliate of GS Group, became the first refiner to claim the $20 billion Export Tower Award in 1983 and since then, its exports have grown around 100 times with an annual average gain of 17.9 percent.

GS’s continuous growth is attributed to its focus on high-value-added light oil, supported by facility investments and technical innovation.

In addition, its 5-trillion-won heavy oil cracking facility has started operations to steadily increase exports of jet fuel, ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel and lube base oil.

GS has the largest heavy oil cracking facility capable of producing 215,000 barrels of oil and a refining facility that churns out 760,000 barrels of petroleum per day.