SK Innovation (096770.KS) is embedding artificial intelligence into the Ulsan Complex, or CLX, the country’s largest crude oil processing site, to maximize operating efficiency. The plan is to pair AI’s strength in prediction and judgment with the expertise of veteran engineers to raise productivity and safety across a site three times the size of Seoul’s Yeouido district
SK Innovation said on the 16th that it is installing a system called Dual Brain at the Ulsan CLX refining and chemical plant. Dual Brain is a next-generation operating framework that combines AI computing power with the experience of seasoned engineers to analyze and assess processes 24 hours a day. AI detects abnormal signs in processes and equipment and proposes responses, and field engineers then review the situation comprehensively before making the final decision. Those decisions are stored as data and fed back into the AI’s next round of analysis.
SK Innovation is accelerating the rollout to squeeze more efficiency out of the Ulsan CLX. Now in its 60th year of operation, the complex refines 840,000 barrels a day across 98 interconnected process units. On a 2.5 million-pyeong site — roughly three times the size of Yeouido — about 3,000 workers a day carry out some 330,000 maintenance and repair jobs a year. Rather than relying on field staff alone to manage operations on that scale, the company aims to use AI to secure productivity and safety at the same time.
“AI is not replacing people. It fills the gaps in time and space that people inevitably miss,” said Jung Chang-hoon, head of the manufacturing AI team at the Ulsan CLX. “We want to address the fundamentals of our business through AI transformation,” the team leader added. “We are concentrating AI on the areas where humans face physical limits.”
Dual Brain rests on three pillars: process optimization, equipment reliability, and safety, health and environment, or SHE. The goal is to maximize the integrated margin of the refining and chemical value chain through uninterrupted, year-round operation while running the plant without fatalities or fires.
To that end, SK Innovation built its own equipment diagnostics platform, SKADI. The system uses AI to monitor vibration and temperature changes in core rotating machinery such as pumps and compressors and to pinpoint the cause of anomalies. A maintenance planning AI then uses the analysis to recommend the optimal timing and method for repairs. The company plans to add predictive AI, expanding the scope of equipment diagnostics and sharply improving accuracy by 2028.
There is also SHEILD, a control platform for safety, health and environment. It shifts field patrols carried out by people to round-the-clock AI-based monitoring, analyzing data such as the status of high-risk work in fine detail. “AI serves as both the control tower and the controller for the Ulsan CLX,” the team leader said.
Robot dogs and drones are also being deployed to gather data on the move. One robot dog is currently in the field, and the company plans to expand the fleet to 10. Even with more robot dogs and drones, however, there will be no workforce reduction. “AI is an assistant, not the decision-maker,” the team leader said. “There is little change for the staff operating the plant in the field.”
SK Innovation expects Dual Brain to deliver productivity gains of about 100 billion won ($72 million) a year at the Ulsan CLX. It is also considering commercializing the system once it has been validated. “It can only be called a real result once it becomes a business,” the team leader said. “We are in talks with IT companies within SK Group.”
SK Innovation plans to use Dual Brain to speed up AI transformation at the Ulsan CLX. Its strategy is to build out data infrastructure in 2027 and fully establish the Dual Brain operating framework after 2030, shifting to an AI-centered organizational structure. “The Ulsan CLX began 60 years ago as South Korea’s first oil refinery, and 60 years from now we want it to be a plant run on Dual Brain, where humans and AI work together,” a company official said.
#SKInnovation#UlsanCLX#DualBrain#AITransformation#OilRefinery#SmartFactory
Original reporting by Jang Hyun-ki for Seoul Economic Daily.
AI-translated from Korean. Quotes from foreign sources are based on Korean-language reports and may not reflect exact original wording.
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