MISC Bhd has entered into a joint venture agreement (JVA) with PETRONAS CCS Ventures Sdn Bhd and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd to establish a joint venture company for the purpose of procuring and owning liquified carbon dioxide (LCO2) carriers to transport LCO2 to CO2 storage sites in Malaysia.
In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, MISC said the new joint venture is to enable the parties to collaborate and form a synergy based on their current capabilities for the purpose of exploring potential business opportunities, to jointly invest in developing LCO2 carriers for transportation of LCO2 to carbon dioxide storage sites in Malaysia.
Notably, as early as September 2023, Petronas CCS Ventures, MISC Berhad, and Merrill Mitsui had signed a list of terms and conditions to form a joint venture to invest in the development and commercialization of LCO2 carriers for the Malaysian Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project.
It has been reported that the LCO2 Carrier and LCO2 Floating Storage Unit, jointly developed by MOL, Petronas and China State Shipbuilding Corporation’s Shanghai Ship Research and Design Institute (SDARI), have received Approval-in-Principle (AiP) certificates from the Det Norske Veritas (DNV) and the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) during the Asian Energy Conference on June 26, 2023, the company said.
Since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on February 7, 2022, MOL and Petronas have been working on the best way to transport LCO2 in the Asia-Pacific and Oceania regions. With the assistance of SDARI, the three parties have worked together to finalize the conceptual design of the LCO2 carrier.
It is claimed that LCO2 carriers can be flexibly utilized in various CCUS ( Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage) value chains (cargo volume and transport distance); LCO2 floating storage and offloading units are designed for offshore offloading concepts, which is considered as one of the effective application scenarios in the CCUS market.