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GS CALTEX BUSINESS — CHAPTER 01
From 800,000 barrels a day to everyday energy —
the world's no.4 single refinery. The story begins in Yeosu.
Founded in 1967 as Korea's first private refiner, GS Caltex still turns crude from across the sea into everyday energy.
01 — CRUDE SOURCING
Crude arrives from over 30 countries in more than 80 grades. Sourcing that leans on no single region spreads the purchasing risk.
Light and heavy, sweet and sour — handling crudes of every character is the first condition of stable supply.
02 — DISTILLATION
Heated past 360°C and fed into the column, the lighter a fraction boils, the higher up it is drawn off. One crude separates into layers of products.
02 — CAPACITY
The daily crude capacity of the Yeosu complex — where gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel and diesel are made.
WORLD NO.4 · SINGLE REFINERY03 — UPGRADING
Distillation is not the end. The cheap residue at the bottom is cracked again into high-value light products — in Korea's largest upgrading complex.
04 — PROCESS MAP
From crude wharf to product wharf, the Yeosu flow rearranged into four streams: basics → upgrading → petrochemicals → base oil. On each card, ← shows where the feed comes from; colored chips show what leaves.
Unloaded from tankers into crude tanks, then sent to the CDU — the starting point of every process.
일반정유 공정
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 strips out sulfur, nitrogen and metals — the step where kerosene and diesel reach product spec.
Recovers 99.9% of sulfur from acid gas — an environmental unit that also yields sulfur as a product.
고도화 공정
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.
석유화학 공정
Where naphtha and LPG go beyond fuel and become materials — the stream that leads into the next chapters.
Naphtha reformed into aromatics — the starting material for clothing, PET and construction.
Low-value byproducts become feedstock for ethylene, propylene and polymers.
베이스오일 공정
The last stream — instead of discarding the hydrocracker's unconverted oil, 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 the tanks — bound for the nation, and through the wharf, the world.
05 — TO EVERYDAY LIFE
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LPG charging stations (end of 2025)ACROSS KOREA
The journey of a drop of crude does not end here. The feedstocks born in refining carry on — into aromatics, olefins and polymer, deeper into chemistry.