Petronas eyes first CO2 injection date by end-2029, early 2030 in Kasawari

(From left) Faizah, Emry and Nur Ain during an exclusive CCUS Media Dialogue today during Energy Asia 2025.
KUALA LUMPUR (June 17): The tentative date for the first carbon dioxide (CO2) injections for Petroliam Nasional Bhd's (Petronas) carbon capture and storage (CCUS) projects for the hard-to-abate industries is towards the end of 2029 or early 2030, subjected to the readiness of clients.
According to Petronas general manager of carbon capture and storage Nor Ain Md Salleh, this timeline dependent on Petronas' clients or CO2 emitters.
'We won't be able to have it ready earlier for too long, and we await Petronas' emitters, so we need to align it. This is where we are at this conjunction in terms of the target date,' she said this during an exclusive CCUS Media Dialogue today during Energy Asia 2025.
To note, Petronas has several CCUS projects with varying levels of maturity, the most advanced one being its M1 storage site in Kasawari offshore Sarawak, where Petronas will focus on storing CO2 coming from the natural gas from the field.
'The rest coming up is actually the three sites that we are developing currently to cater for the storage of the emission coming from other industries that are not oil and gas centric basically.
'We have two in Peninsular Malaysia and one in East Malaysia. Out of the two in Peninsular Malaysia, one is located at the concentrated area of our Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park.
'We are trying to provide a solution for those industries if they can adopt CCS as part of their decarbonisation effort that will contribute towards the reduction and fulfilment of Malaysia national determined contribution as part of the climate effort.'
Petronas head of carbon management Emry Hisham Yusoff underscored the importance for Petronas to align themselves with its customers.
'If the customer does not take up its final investment decision (FID) but we do, we become the white elephant, and nobody will use the facilities. So we have to actually, when we do our projects here, especially in Japan, we are also talking to the emitters.'
Looking at the CCUS value chain, Nor Ain highlighted that storage held the most potential at the moment.
'For TotalEnergies and Mitsui, we are currently progressing with the storage side. Under the Gated Technical Assurance, we are at Gate 4. Now, we are working towards Gate 5 Investment Decision.
'In terms of the storage side, feasibility, safety and integrity, we have already achieved the maturation level. We are tying up the loose ends basically just to ensure and validate some of the legacy well integrity so that again we can minimise the risk of the leakage and the release of the seal. That is on the progress.'
Nor Ain also highlighted Petronas's partnership with Japanese Consortium Parties — Japan Petroleum Exploration Co Ltd (Japex), JGC Holdings Corporation (JGC) and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd (K-LINE) — for storage site agreement (SSA) for the M3 depleted field offshore Sarawak, Malaysia, on February 26, 2024.
This SSA not only enables the feasibility studies of the CO2 storage sites starting with the M3 depleted field (M3 CCS Project), but also the planning of relevant CO2 storage site development, including onshore terminals and transportation pipelines, as well as assessment of its techno-commercial feasibility.
'Both Mitsui and the Japan consortium collaborations are engaging the emitters over in Japan and bringing them to us as part of the partners' obligation. Japan, in terms of the commitment for the decarbonisation, is much more stringent as compared to us in Malaysia.
'So that is already one of the mitigation that come naturally to us when we are offering them the CCS as one of the option.'
Petronas general manager of strategy, planning & commercial, carbon management Faizah Ramlee added that the three storage sites in Malaysia has been selected by the Japanese government under the advanced CCS project as the destination for their CO2 emissions captured in their country.
'We are very pleased to continue that collaboration, and our partners are also on board to secure these emitters or customers that we will be providing solutions for.
'In addition to that, in the spirit of energy superstore, as mentioned by Petronas President last month about us offering beyond just one single product and upholding the integrated nature of our business, we are also working closely with our LNG marketers that is servicing the LNG customers who will be needing the solution for CCS as well.
'That's also the other effort to secure or engage these emitters, not only from Japan but also from South Korea and Singapore.' CCS ccus Energy Asia 2025 Petronas

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