POSCO and ExxonMobil Win Deals of Distinction Award

On October 23, POSCO and ExxonMobil won the Annual Deals of Distinction Award for Chemicals, Energy, Environment and Materials at the annual meeting of the Licensing Executives Society (LES). The event was held in Chicago with over 1000 LES members in attendance.

The LES issues the Deals of Distinction Award once a year to the most valuable licensing agreements in 5 sectors: Life Sciences, High Technology, Consumer Goods, Chemicals, Energy, Environment & Materials and Industry-University-Government Interface, or contracts that solved business issues in creative and innovative ways.

From left, Dong-eun Lee leader of the Energy Plant Materials Sales Group, Dr. Andrew Wasson, ExxonMobil Engineering Specialist, Se-don Choo, head of the Energy and Shipbuilding Materials Marketing Department, and Timothy Kinn, ExxonMobil Senior Commercial Advisor.

Last March, POSCO entered into a licensing agreement with ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, for the production and supply of high manganese steel for slurry pipes. For the past 5 years, the two companies jointly developed POSCO’s high manganese steel for ExxonMobil’s oil sand slurry pipes and commercialized it for the first time ever.

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The LES reviewed the licensing agreements of candidates and awarded POSCO and ExxonMobil the honors. The major factors taken into account were the reduction of time from materials development to market application from a standard 10 years to 5 years, and the drastic extension of steel pipe lifespan. The LES believes such improvements will reduce the overall operating costs for the oil sands industry.

Se-don Choo, head of POSCO’s Energy and Shipbuilding Materials Marketing department said, “The performance of POSCO’s high manganese steel has been recognized in various areas through collaboration with global enterprises. I hope that there will be many more cases of mutually beneficial cooperation between POSCO and its partners using high manganese steel in the future.”