SKC: Process, process, process and technology
Seoul -- Hojin Yang, senior manager, in SKC chemical’s business strategy team explained, said that SKC’s plants are highly reliable.
Normally, SKC has less than two days of unplanned shutdowns a year. The exception was in 2010 when there was trouble with the main compressor, but the plant was back in production in nine days. Yang said of reliability “we believe this is a world record”.
He added: “Every four years we have annual turnaround. This is normally for 25 days.”
While plant reliability is important to SKC, so is fundamentally understanding the processes and technology the firm uses. For example, , SKC is continuously reducing the amount of energy needed to produce PO in its one PO plant. “Since opening we have saved 60% of the energy consumption,” said Yang.
Energy use at SKC has been audited by PDC, a Dutch company which examined nine comparable plants worldwide. PDC found SKC was very energy-efficient. “We were number one and we’re very proud of that,” Yang said. (* PDC : Process Design Center)
