From left: Park In-Chol, Lotte Chemical’s environment management division vice president, Park Cheon-hong, Samsung Engineering’s solution business division executive vice president, Datuk Adif Zulkifli, Petronas executive vice president and CEO of Upstream, Emry Hisham, Petronas head of carbon management, Han Young-ju, SK Earthon’s Technical Center executive vice president and Lee Paul Sung-hoon, GS Energy’s hydrogen and new business division vice president. (From left, back row) Hong Jeong-eui, SK Energy’s Energy Net Zero Office executive vice president, and Kim Jin-mo, Samsung Heavy Industry’s global business team vice president, pose for a photo at a signing ceremony held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Tuesday. (SK Innovation)

Six Korean energy companies will join hands with Malaysia’s state-run energy company, Petroliam Nasional Berhad, to launch a cross-border project that transports carbon captured in South Korea to Malaysia for storage, the firms said Wednesday.

For the project named Shepherd CCS, the six companies, SK Energy, SK Earthon, Samsung Engineering, Samsung Heavy Industries, Lotte Chemical and GS Energy, signed a memorandum of understanding with Petroliam Nasional Berhad, commonly known as Petronas, in Kuala Lumpur, according to a statement.

The project involves collecting carbon released from domestic industrial complexes and then transferring it to storage facilities in Malaysia. The transferred carbon will be converted into liquid materials such as methanol and formic acid or gaseous energy source.

Starting from evaluating potential storage facilities in Malaysia to collecting, transferring and storing carbon released in South Korea, the participating companies plan to establish a full carbon capture and storage (CCS) value chain with the project.

Samsung Engineering will take charge of business development while SK Energy, Lotte Chemical, and GS Energy will design the carbon capture process, and Samsung Heavy Industries will handle transporting the captured carbon. In addition, SK Earthon and Petronas are to search, select and operate the storage facilities.

The project is the first CCS hub project to be initiated in Asia, according to the statement. The project will make it possible to manage carbon emitted by multiple companies on a national level and increase economic efficiency of transporting carbon overseas.

By Lee Yoon-seo (yoonseo.3348@heraldcorp.com)