South Korea's state-owned Korea National Oil (KNOC) and domestic firm Hyundai Engineering and Construction have appointed domestic engineering firmsto design what they described as the country's largest CCS project.
The facility will be built at the depleted Donghae gas field off the east coast of Korea. They contracted HD Korea Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering to develop the subsea CO2 injection system, and contracted HD Hyundai Heavy Industries to develop the facility's offshore platform. The latter built the gas production platform which operated at the same site from 2004-2021.
The developers aim to collect and store 1.2mn t/yr of CO2 from domestic industrial complexes at the facility, they said. This is triple the 400,000 t/yr that KNOC previously announced.
KNOC's website shows a plan to deliver CO2 emissions from South Korea to the site via subsea pipeline in a reversal of the former gas extraction. It also indicates a timeline of preparation in 2021-24, design and construction in 2025-27, and operation over 2028-57.
The government has set a target to store 4.8mn t/yr of CO2 in deep formations by 2030 to achieve its goal of 40pc CO2 reduction by 2030 compared with 2018, according to KNOC. This suggests several more facilities could still be required.
Hyundai and KNOC said they plan to eventually expand their CCS business into other markets, including Australia and southeast Asia, and last week won approval in principle for a 2mn t/yr offshore CO2 subsea storage platform from US classification society American Bureau of Shipping.
