Korea: Taebaek City and PLAGEN to build green methanol bunker fuel plant

Taebaek City and green energy production firm PLAGEN on Tuesday (3 September) said they have signed an investment agreement for a new green methanol production plant in the South Korean city that will be supplied as bunker fuel.

PLAGEN said construction of the facility will begin in the first half of 2025 and is expected to produce 10,000 metric tonnes (mt) of green methanol per year in the second half of 2027, which will be delivered to ships on the US- Korea Green Shipping Corridor.

The container ship corridor and car carrier corridor between Busan-Ulsan Port and Seattle-Tacoma Port in the US is being promoted with the goal of piloting in 2027.

The organisations involved in the agreement are Taebaek City and PLAGEN, Korea Ease-West Power, Hyundai Corporation, Ssangyong E&C, Optimum Trading, Hanbit Energy, LF Energy, and Infrastructure Frontier Asset Management, and will be responsible for procuring raw materials, manufacturing and EPC of the plant, O&M of the plant, purchasing green methanol produced, and procuring carbon credits and project financing.

Under the agreement, the first commercial-scale green methanol plant in Korea will be built in Taebaek City, and the coal mining city will be transformed into a clean energy industrial and carbon-neutral city.

As there is currently no domestic green methanol production in Korea, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries aims to produce 500,000 mt per year of green methanol by 2030.

“We expect to produce 100,000 mt per year of green methanol in Taebaek City by 2030, which is 20 percent of the domestic green methanol production target, contributing significantly to the revitalisation of the local economy and national energy security,” said John Kyung, CEO of PLAGEN.

PLAGEN added Taebaek City is considered an optimal location for green methanol production due to its abundance of wood waste and wind power infrastructure.

Photo credit: PLAGEN
Published: 4 September, 2024