Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light, though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning they, do not go gentle into that good night.
POSCO ramps up push into industrial gas sector
POSCO Center in Seoul / Courtesy of POSCO
By Jhoo Dong-chan
POSCO is accelerating its push into the industrial gas sector, with a high-purity rare gas plant in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, set to come online next month, a move the company says will help reduce the nation's reliance on imported gases critical to semiconductor manufacturing.
The facility is operated by POSCO Zhongtai Air Solution, a joint venture in which POSCO and Zhongtai Cryogenic Technology hold 75.1 percent and 24.9 percent of shares, respectively. Zhongtai, a Chinese cryogenic equipment company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, specializes in gas-related facilities.
The plant is designed to have an annual production capacity of 130,000 normal cubic meters, enough to supply around 52 percent of domestic semiconductor market demand. Target clients include Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Intel, the nation’s largest steelmaker added.
POSCO is reportedly the only Korean company producing "crude" rare gases through oxygen plants at its steel mills. The Gwangyang facility will refine those crude gases — neon, xenon and krypton — into high-purity products used in chip lithography, plasma etching and satellite thrusters.
The project addresses Korea’s scarcity issues exposed in 2022, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine disrupted global neon supplies. Ukraine had accounted for more than half of the world's neon output, and the sudden shortage rippled through semiconductor production lines worldwide.
The steelmaker has been building toward this moment for years. The company began producing crude neon in 2022 and established a dedicated industrial gas division in 2023.
In 2025, it moved further downstream by acquiring full ownership of Chemgas Korea, a semiconductor specialty gas supplier, completing the acquisition on Sept. 15, 2025.
On the general gas side, POSCO operates 20 air separation units — the largest fleet in Korea — supplying oxygen, nitrogen and argon to its steelworks and external industrial clients.
The company produces and uses oxygen and nitrogen for the combustion of iron ore and coal and the removal of carbon impurities during steelmaking, and supplies the remainder externally.
In September 2025, it also began supplying industrial gases to battery manufacturers at a newly built facility in Pohang's Yeongil Bay Industrial Complex, North Gyeongsang Province.
POSCO now covers the full industrial gas spectrum: bulk gases for heavy industry, rare gases for chipmakers and specialty gases for advanced semiconductor processes — a portfolio it has built largely on infrastructure already embedded in its steel operations.
POSCO's value chain in the industrial gas sector / Courtesy of POSCO