LG Chem Ltd., one of South Korea’s leading chemical companies, said Wednesday that it plans to invest 320 billion won ($304 million) to expand its plants for crude acrylic acid and superabsorbent polymers by September 2015.

The expansion will increase LG Chem’s annual production capacity of CAA by 80,000 tons to 510,000 tons and that of SAP by 160,000 tons to 360,000 tons, LG Chem said in a statement.

SAP is used as raw materials for diapers and CAA is used in paint, adhesives and addition agents.

The global CAA market is expected to grow by an annual average of 6 percent to reach 5.9 million tons in 2017 from 4.4 million tons in 2002, the company said.

LG Chem predicted that its plant expansion will increase its sales by more than 400 billion won a year.

The company plans to increase the volume of its CAA and SAP businesses to over 1.7 trillion won from the current 1.3 trillion won, it said. (Yonhap News)