Petronas, TotalEnergies, Mitsui ink JV pact to develop Malaysia carbon storage sites

[SINGAPORE] Malaysia’s Petronas, France’s TotalEnergies and Japan’s Mitsui & Co have agreed to establish a joint venture (JV) to develop offshore carbon dioxide storage sites in Malaysia, advancing the South-east Asian country’s plans to be a decarbonisation hub.

The initial phase will focus on a depleted offshore gas field with an injection capacity of up to five million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Operations are targeted to begin as early as 2031, said a joint statement on Friday (Oct 23).

The joint venture agreement sets the framework for incorporating a dedicated entity to handle development, commercialisation and operations.

Together, the companies are working to advance technical and commercial maturity ahead of a final investment decision, Emry Hisham Yusoff, CEO of Petronas’ Southern Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) unit, said in the statement.

The partnership pairs the Malaysian state-owned energy company’s subsurface infrastructure with TotalEnergies’ technical CCS development experience and Mitsui’s logistics and project investment expertise.

The site forms a central component of Malaysia’s push to become an Asia-Pacific hub capable of handling emissions from domestic heavy industry as well as cross-border shipments.

The venture follows preliminary technical agreements between the three companies in 2023 and 2025 that covered development studies and front-end engineering design.