SK Innovation said Tuesday it will focus on battery and chemicals businesses as its future growth engines, expanding investment and continuing to seek merger and acquisition opportunities.

“SK Innovation aims to build a more sustainable profit structure through the choice and focus strategy,” SK Innovation CEO Kim Jun said Tuesday, during a press conference held at the company’s headquarters in Seoul.

SK Innovation will continue to strengthen its oil refining business, while looking for new opportunities in chemicals and battery sectors to build sustainable growth,” the CEO said. ”SK Innovation will seek for more merger and acquisition opportunities, as well as partnerships with companies abroad,” he added.

With its battery sector, SK Innovation aims to secure a 30 percent market share in the global battery market by 2025, along with raising its overall battery output from the last year’s 1.1 gigawatt-hours to 10 GWh in 2020.

The company currently is constructing two more production lines in Seosan, which will add 1 GWh each for a total of 3.9 GWh. The construction is expected to be completed by the first half of next year.

SK Innovation also plans to start building battery production lines in the Eastern European region later this year, to supply EV battery cells to Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler AG, according to the company’s Battery, Information & Electronics Materials division. The company is currently searching for a construction site, it added.

The world’s battery market is expected to reach 100 GWh in 2020, and between 300 GWh and 1,000 GWh in 2025, dramatically up from the last year’s 25 GWh, the company said.

SK Innovation will advance its battery technology as well, on the back of the growing electric vehicle market. The company’s latest technology allows electric cars to cover up to 350 kilometers on a single charge. The company aims to upgrade it to cover 500 km by 2018 and 700 km by 2020.

Meanwhile, SK Innovation said it will also continue to expand its petrochemicals business by looking for more mergers and acquisitions. The target is to make its SK Global Chemical one of the world’s top 10 chemicals firms, in terms of sales and operating profit, it said.

Earlier this year, SK Innovation decided to take over Dow Chemical’s ethylene acrylic acid unit for $370 million.

SK Innovation initially planned to invest some 3 trillion won ($2.6 billion) in 2017. Of the total 3 trillion won, some 2.4 won of investment has been made to date, the company said.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)