Korea Electric Power Corp. said Friday that it recorded 430.6 billion won ($350.1 million) in operating profit in the first quarter this year, swinging back into the black in three years. The state-run utility witnessed 430.6 billion won in operating profit, a 1-trillion-won increase on-year from an operating loss of 629.9 billion won thanks due to a sharp fall in oil prices. “Thanks to the global fall in fuel prices, Kepco’s expenses spent for fuel and electricity purchases dec

Korea Gas Corp. said Wednesday it is expanding its liquefied natural gas bunkering infrastructure to respond to the global shift to cleaner ship fuel. LNG bunkering is the process of transferring gas to a ship for use as fuel. The state-run natural gas company said it has recently built an LNG carrier SM JEJU LNG2 equipped with ship-to-ship bunkering capabilities. Also, as the ship sails between Jeju Island and Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, it has installed four loading arms -- a pi

S-Oil said Thursday it has partnered with South Korea’s mobile payment platform Kakao Pay that has more than 30 million members, boosting customer experience by facilitating mobile payment at its service stations. The company said it has become the first Korean refiner to introduce Kakao Pay payment at service stations. Instead of carrying credit cards or cash, customers can make payments by scanning their barcodes on the Kakao Pay app. Over the past week, some 200 S-Oil service stat

South Korean game giant Nexon announced Wednesday that it posted a decline in revenue, operating profit and net profit in the first quarter, drawing concerns over its performance in overseas markets. The company’s revenue dipped 11 percent on-year to 904.5 billion won ($738.6 million) while its operating profit and net profit dived 21 percent and 7 percent to 454 billion won and 545.5 billion won, respectively. Nexon’s performance in South Korea was stellar, posting the best qua

LG Chem on Wednesday dispatched a special task force comprised of eight officials to India in the aftermath of a deadly styrene gas leak at a LG Poloymers plant, which left at least 12 local residents dead and more than 1,000 hospitalized. The South Korean chemical and battery firm said the special team includes production and environmental safety experts led by LG Chem Executive Vice President and President of Petrochemicals Business Noh Kug-lae, who will meet local residents and explain su

The Korea Electric Power Corp. said Wednesday that it had won an international bid to build and operate a solar power generation facility in Guam. The state-run utility won an international bid from the Guam Power Authority and signed a long-term electricity supply contract that is expected to bring in $340 million for the company over 25 years. Samsung C&T is to build solar power generation facilities with a capacity of 60 megawatts and an energy storage systems power plant with a capa

LG Chem topped the global electric vehicle battery market in the first quarter thanks to client company Tesla’s strong sales, data showed Wednesday. According to market tracker EV Volumes, the company supplied 14 percent of the batteries for 88,461 Tesla EVs in the first quarter. Propelled by Tesla’s strong sales, LG Chem supplied EV batteries with a total storage capacity of 6.3 gigawatt hours. It took the lead over its Japanese competitor Panasonic for the first time in terms o

S-Oil said Wednesday that its chief executive has donated 280 million won ($228,275) to a social welfare organization to help local communities hit by the coronavirus outbreak. Hussain Al-Qahtani, who was appointed as the company’s new CEO last June, made the donation to the Korea National Council on Social Welfare while also launching corporate social responsibility activities at some 250 service stations nationwide. In the campaign, S-Oil’s marketing staff and executives will c

South Korean game company NCSoft said Tuesday it posted a record quarterly revenue of 731.1 billion won ($596.1 million) owing to the strong sales of mobile games as the COVID-19 outbreak kept people indoors, driving up demand. According to its regulatory filing, the sales of mobile games in the first quarter surged 54 percent to 553.2 billion won from the previous one, accounting for 75.6 percent of the total revenue. NCSoft’s flagship mobile games Lineage M and Lineage 2M brought i

Yes, Riot Games’ Valorant is a new game. But is it original? Certainly not. The soon-to-be released first-person shooter game seems like a mishmash of everything users have seen before -- the graphics of Team Fortress 2, the effects of Paladins, the gameplay of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the gun sounds of Sudden Attack and skills that recall Overwatch and Apex Legends. Though it’s undeniable that Valorant was “inspired” by other FPS titles, the game itself is

A new app from Korean oil refiner GS Caltex will allow charging and payment services at its gas stations without coming into contact with staff, to ensure safety amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. According to GS Caltex with some 330 gas stations here, its non-face-to-face refueling and payment app OWiN saw a 1,000 percent surge in monthly use in March compared to December last year. The number of app users spiked more than 500 percent in the same period. “With OWiN app, customer

With a dramatic drop in international oil prices and sluggish demand amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, oil refinery businesses in South Korea logged their worst-ever performances in the first quarter. Aside from plummeting product prices devastating earnings, some of the companies have also been facing difficulties in managing their recently unwanted stockpiles. Korea’s leading oil refinery and gas station operator SK Energy, in particular, is running out of storage space for crude

South Korean chemical and battery firm LG Chem said Sunday that the company is considering ways to help the victims of the recent gas leak in India, including a visit by its vice chairman to oversee the efforts. After a gas leak at the LG Polymers plant in southern India on Thursday, which left 12 dead and around 1,000 local residents hospitalized, LG Chem has formed a special task force, promising support for victims and bereaved families. “For a thorough investigation and victim sup

Korean oil refiner Hyundai Oilbank said Sunday it would commercialize a technology that can turn carbon emissions and residual products emitted from refineries into paper and construction materials. Hyundai Oilbank said Sunday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Taekyung BK, a domestic manufacturer and distributor of lime with the technology to make calcium carbonate out of carbon emissions from refineries. Calcium carbonate is a raw material for making cement, paper, plastic

LG Chem announced Thursday its new vision to transform the company from providing materials and solutions to one connecting science to life. The company held a ceremony marking its first vision change in 14 years with LG Chem Vice Chairman Shin Hak-cheol presiding in the presence of some 20 staff and executives from each department. “So far, LG Chem has turned dreams into reality with the science around us and has accumulated, making unbreakable lids for cosmetic products and the wor

Following a gas leak at LG Polymers plant in southern India that has left at least nine dead and more than 300 of local residents hospitalized, LG Chem said Thursday that it will take all necessary measures to investigate the cause and prevent further damage to residents and workers. The accident occurred on Thursday at LG Polymers plant in the Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh state, according to news reports citing local police. “The gas leak at the factory has been contained a

South Korea’s leading refiner and chemical company SK Innovation on Wednesday said it has swung to red with an operating loss of 1.7 trillion won ($1.3 billion) in the first quarter -- its worst performance amid the sharp slump in global demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company recorded revenue of 11.1 trillion won, a 12.6 percent drop on-year. Its operating loss was triggered by its ailing petrochemicals business, which lost 1.6 trillion won in the first quarter. “Due t

Korean game company Nexon has changed the paradigm of shooting game by adopting a subscription model for its shooting game Sudden Attack. According to Nexon on Sunday, its first-person shooter game is offering a subscription service called “Sudden Pass,” in which subscribers can receive exclusive characters and items as they level up. Currently, users can buy the subscriptions for 12,800 won ($10.4) and participate in the second season of Sudden Pass, which is from April 9 to Jul

Food products were the most sought items and health supplements saw the biggest increase in demand by South Koreans, while achromatic colors continue to be the favorite hues, big data released by a logistics firm showed Tuesday. The findings were revealed by logistics firm CJ Logistics in its latest consumer trend report. After analyzing big data on 1.3 billion deliveries made in 2019, CJ Logistics -- which commands 47.2 percent market share -- gave details of consumers’ taste in five

South Korea is pushing to expand its electric vehicles market, vowing to use massive subsidies to get 350,000 of them on the road by 2022, but is it feasible? The plan comes without specific guidelines on how to collect and retrieve the vehicles’ key components -- EV batteries -- when they are dead. As per regulations, since December 2018, when drivers of subsidized EVs scrap their cars, they must return dead batteries to municipalities they received subsidies from, according to the Mi