GS Caltex Selected as 'Most Admired Company in Korea'

No. 1 in the New Energy Sector

GS Caltex announced on the 25th that it was selected as the No. 1 company in the New Energy sector in the “Most Admired Companies in Korea” survey conducted by the Korea Management Association Consulting.

On the right, Huh Se-hong, President of GS Caltex, is having a conversation with employees about low-carbon new businesses at last year's Deep Transformation Day event. Photo by GS Caltex

The “Most Admired Companies in Korea” survey evaluates core values essential to becoming a respected company, such as innovation capability, shareholder value, employee value, customer value, social value, and image value, and announces the top company in each industry.

In this survey, the New Energy sector was newly established in response to the global major issues of energy transition and carbon reduction. GS Caltex was recognized for its efforts to proactively respond to the paradigm shift in the energy industry by expanding low-carbon new businesses, and was selected as the No. 1 company in the New Energy sector.

GS Caltex has expanded low-carbon new businesses such as hydrogen, carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), waste plastic recycling, carbon-free steam, and biofuels, based on the stable growth of its existing refining and petrochemical businesses.

First, GS Caltex is building a hydrogen business value chain to supply clean hydrogen. In 2023, it signed a business agreement with Korea South-East Power and Yeosu Industrial Complex to establish a clean hydrogen value chain, and based on this, plans to contribute to reducing carbon emissions and ensuring stable power supply in the Yeosu region through the establishment of the Yeosu Hydrogen Hub. Last year, it signed a purchase contract for the Yulchon convergence logistics complex, which will be used as a business site, with Yeosu Gwangyang Port Authority, officially starting the project.

As a measure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions generated during the hydrogen production process, GS Caltex is developing a CCUS business. Starting with signing CCUS business agreements with major companies in 2022, in 2024, it is forming a consultative body with major companies in the Yeosu Industrial Complex and promoting public-private cooperation to establish the “Yeosu CCUS Cluster” together with the consultative body and local governments.

In addition, to establish a plastic circular economy, GS Caltex is expanding chemical recycling (CR) and mechanical recycling (MR) businesses for waste plastics. In 2021, it succeeded in a demonstration project producing pyrolysis oil through CR technology and using it as raw material in refining and petrochemical processes to produce resource-circulating products. Last year, it began production and sales of various resource-circulating products by introducing pyrolysis oil.

GS Caltex is also promoting projects to reduce carbon emissions by introducing carbon-free energy sources. It plans to replace the liquefied natural gas (LNG) raw material steam currently in use at the GS Caltex Yeosu plant with carbon-free steam produced by utilizing the idle sulfuric acid plant owned by Namhae Chemical.

Furthermore, GS Caltex is building a bio business value chain including bio-aviation fuel, bio-marine fuel, and white bio in line with the global fuel market environment. For bio-aviation fuel, it received sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from Neste, the world’s largest biofuel producer based in Finland, and in September 2023, started the first SAF refueling and demonstration flights in Korea, successfully completing a total of six demonstration flights. Additionally, it exported ICAO-certified international aviation carbon offset and reduction scheme (CORSIA) SAF, manufactured by mixing Neste’s neat SAF (100% SAF) with conventional aviation fuel, to Narita Airport in Japan through Itochu Corporation in September last year. It has been supplying CORSIA SAF produced by co-processing to domestic airlines since December last year.

Huh Se-hong, CEO of GS Caltex, said, “GS Caltex is advancing toward becoming a 100-year company based on sustainable and profitable growth,” and added, “We will continue to steadily expand low-carbon new businesses to build a sustainable business portfolio by responding to the energy transition in a balanced manner.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.