[Courtesy of SK Innovation]
South Korea's top refiner SK Innovation disclosed a planned investment of 10 trillion won (8.9 billion US dollars) in an aggressive shift in its business portfolio to nurture battery and chemical businesses as its next growth engine.
SK Innovation, a lucrative subsidiary of South Korea's SK Group led by Chairman Chey Tae-won, said in a regulatory filing that along with new businesses, it would strengthen its competitiveness through global partnership in petroleum and lubricant businesses.
The new investment is part of Chey's "Deep Change" initiative seeking sustainable growth engines.
SK Innovation president Kim Jun said earlier that the company aims to secure 30 percent of the global battery market by 2025. He offered to develop batteries that would allow an electric vehicle to travel 500 kilometers (310 miles) on a single charge by 2018 and 700 kilometers by early 2020.
SK Innovation's main income now comes from chemical and petroleum-related products that helped the company post record earnings last year.
In the first quarter of this year, SK Innovation's operating profit rose 19 percent on-year to one trillion won, led by its non-refining business. The petrochemical division earned an operating profit of 454.7 billion won. The company has acquired Dow Chemical's ethylene acrylic acid business.
Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
