POSCO International Corporation (Korean: 포스코인터내셔널[5]) is South Korea's largest trading company[6] and a subsidiary of POSCO.
The company was founded by Kim Woo-choong in 1967 as Daewoo Industrial Co., Ltd, which ran its business in trading and construction. In 1999, the company faced at least $50 billion in debt, and Daewoo became formally dismantled.[7] In 2000, as Daewoo Group faced work-out program, Daewoo Industrial Co., Ltd's trading segment was split and established as "Daewoo International Corporation". Afterwards, it succeeded in general trading license and was listed on the stock market again. In 2016, the Company name changed from "Daewoo International" to "POSCO Daewoo". After merging with Posco P&S in 2017,[8] the company name was changed to what it is currently, "POSCO International Corporation" in 2019[9]
On 2 November 2020, POSCO International and Erae AMS was to supply the Vietnamese carmaker VinFast with electrical vehicle (EV) components.[10]
It aimed to issue ESG bonds for first time for Korean trading companies in year 2021.[11]
In the year 2022, Posco International acquired Australian gas and energy company Senex.
In the year 2023, Posco International merged with its sister company Posco Energy, integrating upstream and downstream LNG movement. The company announced a new vision "Green Energy & Global Business Pioneer" to create, connect, and complete business to enrich the future. POSCO International is making its way towards becoming a global eco-friendly integrated corporation.[citation needed]
POSCO INTERNATIONAL Corporation has its head office in 134, Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea. Its global network consists of over 80 overseas branches and subsidiaries.
As of Jan 2023, after the merge with POSCO Energy, the company restructured in the following ways. The main purpose of organizational change was to boost energy business through the completion of LNG value chain, and global trading in the sectors steel/agro/eco-friendly materials.
Energy - E&P, Gas operations, Energy(LNG, Solar, Wind, Hydrogen), Resource development
Steel - Export/Import/Triangular sales: Semi-finished Goods & Long Products, Wire Rods, Thick Steel Plates, Steel Products for the Energy Industry, Hot-Rolled Steel Sheets, Cold-Rolled Steel Sheets. Coated Steel Sheets, Color Steel Plates, Electrical Steel, Automotive Steel Sheets, Stainless Steel, Steel Building Materials, Lithium-ion Battery Materials. Domestic processing and distribution: POSCO Mobility Solution, eSTEEL4U
Agro - Grain trading, Palm oil, Cotton business
New Growth Business - Bioplastics, Eco-friendly car parts, Public infrastructure
Splits steel processing and manufacturing sectors as subsidiary, and names POSCO SPS, which changed its name to POSCO Mobility Solution.[12][13]
Posco has been criticised for running gas projects in Myanmar that financially benefit the country's military junta.[14] Posco runs the Shwe gas project, and have been named by the Guardian as one company profiting from its "operations that have helped prop up the military regime".[15] The EU has also sanctioned MOGE, which owns a 15% stake in the Shwe gas project run by Posco.[16]
Posco's subsidiary company, PT Bio Inti Agrindo (BIA) has faced criticism in Papua New Guinea for clearing 270 square kilometres of rainforest for a palm oil plantation between 2012 and 2018. The company has also been involved in disputes with indigenous communities about land rights.[17] In 2020 the company adopted a new deforestation policy and said it would compensate some areas that it had deforested.[18]
According to eco-business.com, "Posco International, which has 34,000 hectares of palm oil plantations in Papua and produced about 80,000 tonnes of palm oil last year, will also require third-party suppliers to observe its No Deforestation, No Peatland, No Exploitation (NDPE) policy."[18]