Japan’s Chugoku ties up with Mitsui on CCS in Malaysia

Japanese utility Chugoku Electric Power is to partner on its carbon capture and storage (CCS) strategy with trading house Mitsui that has a planned project offshore Malaysia.

Chugoku signed an initial agreement with Mitsui on 19 February to jointly study building a CCS value chain, by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from Chugoku's coal-fired power plants and transporting liquefied CO2 to storage sites offshore Malaysia.

Chugoku is planning to launch floating offshore temporary storage facilities before handing over the CO2 to a shipping firm. The capacity of the floating facilities is unclear but the company is expecting to export a few hundred thousand t/yr of CO2. Chugoku aims to halve its CO2 emissions by the April 2030-March 2031 fiscal year against 2013-14 levels before achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

Mitsui is currently developing a CCS project offshore Malaysia with Malaysia's state-owned Petronas through its subsidiary Petronas CCS Solutions and France-based oil major TotalEnergies. They are aiming to start storing CO2 by around 2030, with its relatively early start-up attracting Chugoku to become a partner with Mitsui. The Malaysia CCS project is backed by Japan's state-owned energy agency Jogmec.

Japan has been looking to Malaysia as a destination for CO2 exports and storage because of its limited domestic storage sites. Japan's trade and industry ministry and Jogmec have signed an initial agreement with Petronas to begin discussing a regulatory and general framework on CO2 exports from Japan and storage in Malaysia.

By Motoko Hasegawa