HD Hyundai Heavy Industries has signed a preliminary basic design contract with sister company Hyundai Engineering & Construction for a carbon dioxide platform intended for the carbon capture and storage (CCS) project envisaged at Korea National Oil Corporation’s (KNOC) depleted Donghae gas field offshore South Korea.
KNOC has plans for a 1.2 million tonnes per annum CCS scheme at Donghae, which ceased production in late 2021.
HD Hyundai some 20 years ago constructed the platform for the Donghae field, and the offshore and marine giant is now set to play a key role in repurposing the offshore asset.
It is understood that the contractor will be responsible for the offshore platform while subsidiary HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering is tasked with developing the CO2 subsea injection system.
The Donghae field, located in the East Sea around 20 miles offshore the port city of Ulsan, came on stream in 2004 and produced for 17 years.
The CCS project, currently hailed as South Korea’s largest, has an initial ambition to capture and store 1.2 million tpa of CO2 from the nation’s industrial complexes.
The timeline for Donghae CCS project involves preparation until 2024, design and construction of the facilities from 2025 to 2027 and operations running from 2028 to 2057, according to KNOC.
HD KSOE and HD Hyundai Heavy have jointly developed a CO2 injection platform in collaboration with KNOC, which has obtained basic design certification from both ABS and DNV.
Leveraging on its offshore fabrication experience, HD Hyundai Heavy also recently obtained design approval from ABS for a floating CO2 platform model for a 2 million tpa CCS scheme.
Under South Korea’s updated and enhanced NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions), the government has committed to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from the 2018 level by 2030.
Based on this April’s 1st National Carbon Neutral and Green Growth Basic Plan, 4.8 million tpa of CO2 will be captured and stored in deep formations by 2030.
“Among many other technologies for CO₂ reduction, CCS is the most pre-emptive one that will contribute to achieving our target for GHG reduction and carbon neutrality by 2050,” commented KNOC.
Donghae-1 wind farm
The national company has already embarked on a project to utilise the jacket of its original Donghae production platform as a substructure for an offshore wind farm.
This project envisages a number of floating turbines enclosing the jacket that will produce 780,000 megawatt hours of electricity annually, which KNOC has said is sufficient for around 260,000 households.
The 200-megawatt capacity Donghae-1 offshore wind project is targeting the start-up of commercial operations by 2026 and a project life of 20 years.
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