PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2018

CAPS & CLOSURES 28 PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 10/18 www.petpla.net LG Chem introduces Lucene HDPE for caps and closures Customised caps and closures by Ruari McCallion The Korean giant LG Chem is positioning itself as a “solu- tion partner” and collaborator, rather than just a supplier of commodity plastic raw materials. Ruari McCallion visited the company headquarters in Seoul and its polyolefin R&D facil- ity at Daejon, South Korea. LG Chem, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, is a world-class supplier of polymers, which generated sales of US$17.8bn in 2016. It employs 26,660 people across the world; it has 14 manufacturing subsidiaries, located in China, Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, India, SE Asia, USA and, since 2005, at a site in Wroclaw, Poland. While its principal markets have, for historical reasons, been primarily in the Far East it is eager to sell its products all across the world. In its drive to forge a strong presence in a competitive market, it is seeking to prove itself as a solu- tions provider, a company that understands customer needs and designs products to suit. Its recent launch of Lucene, an HDPE (high den- sity polyethylene) based on LG’s own metallocene catalyst technol- ogy, is part of this strategy. LG started producing low- density polyeth- ylene (LDPE) in 1991, when it manufactured a total of 150,000 t. The first ship- ments of HDPE followed a year later. Its verti- cally-integrated production operation refines crude oil into naphtha, which is then used to produce a range of petrochemicals including ethylene and propylene. The company’s total output of EVA, PP, POE, LDPE and HDPE now exceeds 1,460 kt, of which approximately one-third is HDPE. Growth in future is expected to come from specialist, higher value areas. “We are focused on virgin PE (pol- yethylene), including HDPE, which we sell to all sizes of companies,” said Mr Kim Ji Hun, known as “Joon”, Sales Manager with the PO (polyolefin) Overseas Sales Team. “The HDPE market is very big but it is also com- moditised. By focusing on bottle caps. We are able to concentrate our efforts on a premium, higher-technology and sophisticated market.” Production facilities The polyolefin production com- plexes are located at Yeosu, on the southern coast of the country and was opened in 1976; and Daesan, on the west coast, which opened in 2005 and is the primary manufacturing site for LDPE and HDPE. It is about 90 min- utes’ drive from Seoul. The advantages for food and bev- erage packaging of PEs, both low and high density, are well known and also extend to pharmaceutical and personal care applications. LG produces the full range of standard HDPEs for food and beverage package closures. It makes a feature of very good organoleptic prop- erties and can remove small-molecule hydrogen in order to prevent negative effects on taste. The launch of Lucene The primary reason for visiting LG Chem was to learn about Lucene, the company’s HDPE based on its propri- From left: Joon Kim (Sales Manager, LG Polyolefin Overseas Sales Team), Ruari McCallion (PETplanet) and Jo Han Bae (Professional, LG Polyolefin TS Team)