SK Earthon Participates in National Project to Discover Domestic Offshore Carbon Dioxide Storage Sites

Myeongseong CEO "Contributing to National CCS Activation and Carbon Reduction"

SK Earth On, together with Hanyang University, the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, and the Korea National Oil Corporation, will embark on exploring candidate sites for carbon dioxide storage in the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula. Leveraging 40 years of offshore oil exploration experience, it is expected to contribute to establishing a domestic carbon capture and storage (CCS) business foundation.

On the 26th, SK Earth On announced its participation in the national project consortium titled “Securing Commercial-Scale Large Carbon Dioxide Storage Sites through Comprehensive 2D·3D Physical Exploration and Computational Reprocessing by Region around the Korean Peninsula (hereinafter referred to as Securing Carbon Dioxide Storage Sites around the Korean Peninsula),” led by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and managed by the Korea Energy Technology Evaluation Institute.

The national project to secure carbon dioxide storage sites around the Korean Peninsula is a project to extensively and precisely explore the East Sea, West Sea, and South Sea areas around the Korean Peninsula to evaluate where and how much carbon dioxide can be stored. It involves improving data obtained from past oil exploration in these areas and conducting additional surveys in regions where data was insufficient to discover promising carbon dioxide storage sites. Additionally, it plans to propose standards for the currently unstandardized methods of selecting carbon dioxide storage sites.

Hanyang University serves as the lead research institution overseeing the project, with public sector organizations such as the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources and the Korea National Oil Corporation, academia including Seoul National University, Yonsei University, and Inha University, and supercomputing specialist company Cocorink participating in the project.

SK Earth On will establish criteria for selecting carbon dioxide storage sites by utilizing its 40 years of accumulated crude oil exploration technology capabilities, as the characteristics of seabed formations suitable for carbon dioxide storage are similar to those of offshore oil fields. Previously, SK Earth On established a dedicated CCS organization in 2021 and has been developing CCS business projects in the United States, Australia, and Southeast Asia. Domestically, it has participated in several national CCS projects, striving for CCS commercialization and carbon dioxide reduction.

According to the government’s “1st National Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth Basic Plan” announced in March this year, the greenhouse gas reduction target using CCS is 4.8 million tons annually by 2030. To achieve national carbon neutrality by 2050, one billion tons of carbon dioxide must be stored underground, necessitating the securing of large-capacity storage sites that guarantee economic feasibility and safety. The national project to secure carbon dioxide storage sites around the Korean Peninsula, scheduled until December 2026, is expected to lay the groundwork for activating CCS in Korea.

Myeongseong, President of SK Earth On, said, “Based on 40 years of resource development experience, SK Earth On will strive to discover suitable CCS candidate sites in the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula through this national project,” adding, “We will actively contribute to the national activation of CCS and the promotion of carbon reduction through it.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.