Japan, Petronas to discuss exporting CO2 to Malaysian storage sites

TOKYO – The Japanese government and Malaysia’s state oil firm Petronas on Wednesday agreed to discuss how to export carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted in Japan to storage sites in Malaysia as part of efforts to tackle climate change.

Similar talks could eventually take place with other nations in Asia, said Mr Norihiko Saeki, director of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Meti) carbon capture and storage (CCS) policy office.

Meti, the state-owned Japan Organisation for Metals and Energy Security (Jogmec) and Petronas signed a memorandum of cooperation (MoC) on CCS on Wednesday with the aim of shipping CO2 from Japan as early as 2028.

“We haven’t set any numerical targets for how much CO2 to be transported,” Mr Saeki told a news conference after the Asia CCUS Network conference in Hiroshima, western Japan. CCUS stands for carbon capture, usage and storage.

Mr Saeki said a regulatory framework was needed to enable private companies to make an investment decision on CCS, which removes CO2 emissions from the atmosphere and stores them underground.

Early in 2023, Japan set a target of annual CO2 storage capacity of 6 million to 12 million tonnes by 2030 under a long-term roadmap for CCS.

Dr Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, told the conference in video remarks there were more than 500 CCUS projects globally, including in China, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea, but much more work was needed.

“Even if all of these projects would see the light of the day, all these projects would make only about one-third of what we would like to see,” he said.

One hurdle is a lack of transportation and storage networks for projects, analysts say.

“Based on planned carbon capture projects, more than 90 million metric tonnes per annum of CO2 will be shipped by the end of the decade, volumes requiring 48 terminals to handle the import and export of the gas,” Rystad Energy said in a report. REUTERS