Hyundai Engineering & Construction (Hyundai E&C) has announced the successful installation of the Korea’s largest propylene fractionator at the Shaheen ethylene facility construction site. The monumental tower, a crucial component for propylene production, boasts a height of 118 meters, a diameter of 8.5 meters, and a weight of 2,370 tons, setting a new record for the heaviest petrochemical facility installation in the country.

The installation was completed in remarkable 14 hours and involved the complex task of transporting the massive structure from the loading dock to the site and vertically erecting it using the Tower Lifting System (TLS).

The Shaheen project, a 9.258 trillion won investment spanning 880,000 square meters (equivalent to 120 soccer fields) in the Onsan National Industrial Complex, Ulsan Metropolitan City, is the largest petrochemical project in Korea. It aims to establish high-value-added petrochemical production facilities. Hyundai E&C, in collaboration with Hyundai Engineering and DL E&C, is responsible for the construction of Shaheen's ethylene facility package 1, which includes the world's largest ethylene production facility, "Steam Cracker," utilizing TC2C technology.

The scale of the project is immense, with the propylene separation tower being just one of the many large-scale components. The cracking heater, another critical piece of equipment, stands 68 meters tall and weighs 3,200 tons. The civil engineering works alone require 333,749 cubic meters of concrete, delivered by 60,000 ready-mixed concrete vehicles, and 98,634 tons of steel frames, equivalent to the weight of 14 Eiffel Towers.

Hyundai E&C is committed to maximizing the synergy between K-Construction technology and the world-first commercial operation of TC2C. With the project's process rate exceeding 60%, the company is on track to complete the steam cracker installation within the first half of this year, paving the way for the production of 1.8 million tons of ethylene and basic oils. Trial runs are scheduled to commence in the second half of the year.

The Shaheen project is expected to begin commercial operations in the second half of 2026, following completion in the first half of the same year. It will produce ethylene, basic oils (including 770,000 tons of propylene, 200,000 tons of butadiene, and 280,000 tons of benzene), and polyethylene (880,000 tons of LLDPE and 440,000 tons of HDPE). S-Oil aims to leverage this project to strengthen the fundamental competitiveness of Korea's petrochemical industry and contribute to the expansion of the value chain with neighboring industrial complexes.