- Three companies, including SK Materials, and an eco-friendly subsidiary of ‘Petronas’, a Malaysian state-owned company, MOU for business cooperation.
- Expect synergy by combining SK technology such as hydrogen, fuel cell and electric vehicle charging with Petronas business infrastructure.
- SK, SK Ecoplant’s Malaysian environmental company Accelerating entry into the eco-friendly market in Southeast Asia following acquisitions.
SK will join hands with Malaysia’s No. 1 state-owned energy company Petronas to cooperate in eco-friendly businesses. Following the recent equity investment in eco-friendly companies such as Vietnam and Singapore, SK’s entry into the eco-friendly business market in Southeast Asia is accelerating.
SK announced on the 5th that it had recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for comprehensive business cooperation in the eco-friendly field between three companies, including SK Materials, SK Eco Plant, and SK Signet, and Gentari, Petronas’ eco-friendly business subsidiary.
Through this agreement, SK and Gentari decided to discover joint business projects in fields such as hydrogen, fuel cells, and electric vehicle charging and seek various cooperation opportunities.
Specifically, SK Materials will produce blue hydrogen and ammonia using the technology of US 8 Rivers, which it invested in earlier this year, and promote the CCS (carbon capture and storage) project for carbon dioxide storage. SK Ecoplant is in charge of SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell)-based eco-friendly power generation and data center power supply business, while SK Signet, a global second-largest electric vehicle charger manufacturer and operator as a subsidiary of SK Corporation, provides electric vehicle charging solutions and battery service business (Baas)., Battery-as-a-Service) to discover cooperative models.
Each company plans to materialize its commercialization plan after reviewing cooperation plans such as business feasibility by the end of this year.
Lee Yong-wook, President of SK Materials Co., Ltd., said, “The eco-friendly business cooperation between SK and Petronas is a meaningful step toward jointly responding to the global climate crisis. We will do our best to secure future eco-friendly energy technology.”
Petronas is the largest state-owned energy company in Malaysia, established in 1974, and has entered over 50 countries around the world to develop and produce oil and gas. After declaring the achievement of Net Zero by 2050 together with the Malaysian government last year, Gentary, a subsidiary for eco-friendly businesses, has been established and eco-friendly investments such as hydrogen business promotion and electric vehicle ecosystem construction are in full swing.
SK has set a challenging goal of achieving ‘Net Zero’ ahead of the global carbon-neutral goal of 2050, and is significantly strengthening its eco-friendly business. At the CEO seminar in October and the ‘Trans-pacific Dialogue’ held in the US in December, SK Chairman Chey Tae-won said, “As of 2030, the reduction of 200 million tons of carbon, which is 1% of the global carbon reduction target (21 billion tons), is SK will contribute to this,” he declared.
SK expects to create great synergies if it cooperates with Petronas by utilizing its technologies and capabilities such as hydrogen and electric vehicle ecosystems. In particular, through the production and distribution infrastructure of Petronas, a global petroleum and liquefied natural gas (LNG) company, it is expected that commercialization will be possible, such as hydrogen production and supply and installation of electric vehicle chargers in gas stations.
An SK official said, “This business agreement is meaningful in that it goes beyond simple investment in the Southeast Asian market, which is the key point of SK’s strategic overseas partnership, and expands its eco-friendly business in earnest.”
Earlier this year, SK Ecoplant decided to start trading in Korea for carbon credits secured through local solar power generation in partnership with Nami Solar, a Vietnamese solar power company, followed by Singapore E-waste (electricity). ·Acquired electronic waste) company TES. In May, it acquired a 30% stake in Cenviro, Malaysia’s largest comprehensive environmental company.
Earlier, SK Nexilis, which manufactures copper foil, a key material for electric vehicle batteries, selected Malaysia as its first overseas plant location and is investing 650 billion won to build a copper foil plant with an annual production capacity of 44,000 tons.
In December of last year, we also signed a business agreement with Vietnamese government officials, including National Assembly Speaker Vuong Dinh Hue, while Chairman Chey Tae-won was visiting Korea, to promote comprehensive cooperation in the eco-friendly business area for ‘Net Zero’.
Read the most up to date Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Industry news at FuelCellsWorks
