Hyundai Oilbank set to go public next year: CEO

DAESAN, South Korea, Sept. 1 (Yonhap) -- Hyundai Oilbank Co., South Korea's fourth-largest oil refiner, is planning to list its shares on the country's main bourse next year, its chief said Thursday.
"The plan still depends on market situations but we are hoping to list shares before the first half of next year," Hyundai Oilbank CEO Kwon Oh-gap told reporters after a ceremony kicking off operations at its second heavy-oil processing plant in Daesan, a coastal city 137 kilometers southwest of Seoul.
SK Innovation, the leader in the South Korean refining market, and No. 3 player S-Oil Corp. are listed on the country's main bourse, while No. 2 player GS Caltex Corp. is still privately held.
Hyundai Oilbank is 91 percent owned by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., South Korea's leading shipbuilder, after an Abu Dhabi-based petroleum firm sold back its controlling stake in the South Korean refiner for around 2.6 trillion won (US$2.4 billion) in August last year.
Kwon said that the new facility that transforms heavy oils such as bunker C oil into higher-quality gasoline will boost the refiner's heavy-oil processing capacity to 120,000 barrels a day from the current 68,000 barrels. The refiner has a daily capacity of processing 390,000 barrels of crude oil.
Hyundai Oilbank spent 2.6 trillion won on the construction of the facility.
"So we are ready to start lubricant oil and propylene businesses," said Kwon.
He said Hyundai Oilbank's market share in the country jumped from 18 percent a year earlier to the current 20 percent. "I'm targeting raising the share by 1 percent every year."
brk@yna.co.kr