SK Group withdraws HOU facility investment

SK Group has withdrawn its plan to invest in building a heavy oil upgrading (HOU) facility in SK’s Incheon refinery, a project that was brought up in 2008 and has been halted since then. The HOU facility turns heavy crude oil, such as bunker C, into high value-added petroleum products like diesel fuel or gasoline. According to SK, the group’s intermediary holding company SK Innovations recorded a loss of 32 billion won (US$28.51 million) caused by the project stoppage. The company is said to have canceled orders of machines and restructured the facility workforce already. (January 27, 2011)