GS CALTEX BUSINESS — PROLOGUE
A process that looks tangled, seen in four streams —
the complete map of the Yeosu complex, from crude wharf to product wharf.
MAP — PROCESS MAP
From the crude wharf to the product wharf, the Yeosu complex's production process rearranged into four streams: basics → upgrading → petrochemicals → base oil. On each process card, ← shows where the feed comes from; colored chips show what leaves.
HOW TO READ Crude enters the basics stream and splits, flows through upgrading, petrochemicals and base oil, and gathers again as product. In practice, some products also ship directly from individual units.
Unloaded from tankers into crude tanks, then sent to the CDU — the starting point of every process.
Refining Process
Separating crude by boiling point and stripping out impurities. The fractions split here feed the other three streams.
The first gate: crude heated past 360°C and separated by boiling point. Every stream below starts here.
Oil too heavy to boil at normal pressure is distilled again near-vacuum — the feed store for upgrading and base oil.
Hydrogen removes impurities such as sulfur and nitrogen compounds — the step where kerosene and diesel reach product spec.
Recovers 99.9% of sulfur from the acid gas generated in the process. A core environmental unit that cuts air-pollutant emissions; the recovered sulfur is sold as a separate product.
Upgrading Process
Catalysts and hydrogen re-crack cheap heavy oil into high-value light products — Korea's largest upgrading complex, 275,000 barrels a day.
Residue from the bottom of the CDU is sprayed into a catalyst bed and cracked into lighter oil.
Vacuum gasoil cracked over catalyst into light products.
Vacuum gasoil reacted with hydrogen and cracked. Its unconverted oil goes on to feed the base oil plant.
Even the heaviest residue is hydrogen-cracked into high-value light products.
Petrochemical Process
Where naphtha and LPG from refining go beyond fuel and become materials — the stream that leads into the Aromatics, Olefins and Polymer chapters.
Naphtha reformed into aromatics — the starting material for clothing, PET and construction.
Low-value byproducts become feedstock for ethylene and propylene.
Ethylene and propylene are polymerized with catalysts into polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), then compounded into specialty resins.
Base Oil Process
The last stream — instead of discarding the unconverted oil left by the upgrading process (HCR), it becomes the raw material of lubricants.
30,000 barrels a day of premium base oil from hydrocracked feed — continued in the Lubricants chapter.
Products from all four streams gather in dedicated storage tanks, where they are brought to spec, then shipped at home and abroad by vessel from the product wharves and by pipeline and tank truck. From crude receipt to product shipment, storage and loading run as one integrated logistics system.
Four scattered-looking streams have come together into one map. Now, starting with the map's first stream, the basics, we look at each in turn.