SK Lubricants Co., a unit of South Korea’s top refiner SK Innovation Co., said Wednesday that it has broken ground for a joint-venture plant for lube base oil in Spain in an effort to tap the global market.

The plant will be built in Cartagena, a city in the southeastern coastal area of Spain, by the second half of 2014, and will have a daily capacity of 13,300 barrels of Group III lube base oil used for materials of high-grade lubes, SK Lubricants said in a statement.

In order to build the plant, SK Lubricants set up a joint venture with Repsol S.A., a Spanish oil and gas firm, with the South Korean company holding a 70 percent stake in it.

The two companies plan to spend a total of 250 million euros ($323 million) on the construction of the plant, SK Lubricants said.

Repsol will provide materials for lube base oils and infrastructure to produce the oil, while SK Lubricants will offer technologies for lube base oil production and its global marketing networks, the South Korean firm said. (Yonhap News)