S-Oil Corp., South Korea's third-largest refiner, said Thursday that it plans to build a research and development (R&D) center in a suburb of Seoul within two years. 

"The center is designed to strengthen our R&D capacity, which is a core competence in the downstream sector of the oil and petrochemical industry," S-Oil said in an e-mailed statement. 

The downstream sector refers to the refining of crude oil and the distribution of the by-products such as gasoline and a variety of other energy sources down to the retail level.

"We plan to start the construction of the center no later than two years, but details have yet to be decided," an S-Oil official said by phone. 

Once it is built, the center will conduct studies on the production of high value-added petrochemicals, the company said. (Yonhap)