SK Corp. Forges Marketing
Tie-up with Axens
The French firm to market SK? APU technology around the world

SK Corp. signed a business cooperation agreement with Axens Co. of France for global marketing of its Advanced Pyrolysis Gasoline Upgrading Technology, which the company developed with its own technology.
The agreement was signed at its head office in downtown Seoul with Jean Sentenac of the French company, Chairman Chey Tae-won and President Shin Hun-chol present at the signing ceremony.
Under the agreement, Axens will sell the APU technology developed and supplied by SK Corp. and SK Corp. will supply the technology product to the French firm for royalties.
SK estimates that it will earn at least $20 million from the sale of its APU Technology a year, compared to $5 million the company spent to develop the technology.
The APU technology is able to produce BTX which costs from $800 to $1,000 per ton from cheaper Pyrolysis Gasoline, costing from $400 to $500 per ton extracted from the Naptha Cracking Unit.
The existing BTX production process is complicated and it needs another expensive process to extract BTX, but the new technology doesn? need the additional process and furthermore, LPG produced in the process can be put back into the Naptha Cracking Unit reducing the production costs. In 2001, the company earned 10 billion won in the process of test-running the new technology.
The future marketing prospect for the technology is bright because there would be many ethylene plants in the world newly built due to a boom in the petrochemical industry. They expect some 30 million tons of additional ethylene will be produced due to new construction and expansion of naptha cracking units in the Middle East and Europe.
If all these naptha cracking units acquire the APU technology, the annual sale of the technology would amount to $70 million, according to SK Corp.
The company figures at least 30 percent of the new naptha cracking units and expanded ones would acquire the APU technology due to the revolutionary nature of the technology and Axens?marketing ability with the company well known for its licensing sale of cracking and production technologies in the world.
Chairman Chey said SK has once again showed off its technology prowess to the world as it has already a number of technologies in the areas of environment and cracking. You have to have technological power to do global business and SK has once again gained worldwide recognition for its technological capability with the development and sale of the APU technology.
Axens President Sentenac said Axens would conduct a global marketing campaign for the APU technology putting into good use its global network in the area of cracking and production process, technological power and brand recognition.
Managing director Park Sang-hoon of the SK Technology Institute said the institute put up 5 billion won in three years from 1998 to develop the technology and succeeded for the first time in the world. The company already obtained the patent rights for the technology in the United States, and is in the process of doing the same in 20 other countries.
He said the company set up the institute in 1985 and began research on cracking, which is a core technology in the petrochemical industry. The institute succeeded in developing ATA, DPF, SCR and other technologies. This time, the institute, developed the production process, too, along with the APU technology. nw

SK Corp. Chairman Chey Tae-won shakes hands with President Jean Sentenac of Axens Co., in France, after signing a business cooperation agreement in Seoul.