South Korea’s LG Chem Ltd. carries out safety checks on all 40 industrial sites at home and abroad until next month after a string of fatal accidents for comprehensive upgrade and repair or even closure if necessary to place safety as its top priority.

“If there are questions on safety hazards, we will pull out from the business,” said Shin Hak-cheol, vice chairman of LG Chem on Tuesday.

LG Group chief Koo Kwang-mo last week demanded convincing actions on safety management following the fatal accidents at the company’s facilities at home and abroad.

Twelve residents died and hundreds sickened from a gas leak at LG Polymers’ plant in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh on May 7. A fire at LG Chem’s catalyst lab in the central city of Seosan in Korea on May 19 killed one worker and injured two others less than two weeks after the accident in India.

LG Chem in a statement said it will carry out emergency safety inspections for risky process and facilities of all the plants – 17 at home and 23 abroad – until the end of next month. All the issues pointed out by the inspectors will be immediately addressed or production will be temporarily shuttered for the upgrade.

The company’s safety personnel will form a team with outside experts to conduct more precise inspection for risky production lines, it added. The company now is discussing partnership with related companies for the work.

A special meeting presided by CEO also will be held twice a week to monitor the inspection progress and manage the environment safety budget with the heads of each business, safety personnel and CFO.

To put safety ahead of anything else, LG Chem is planning to establish an information technology system to detect and halt any project that cannot secure environment and safety in the early planning stage by the year-end at home and by the first half of next year abroad.

The budget of 200 billion won for environmental safety will be spent mostly on skilled professionals and its safety personnel at home and abroad this year, it added.

By Won Ho-sup and Lee Ha-yeon

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]