Page 12 - AsianOil Week 15 2021
P. 12
AsianOil EAST ASIA AsianOil
CNOOC, China Gas join
hands in hydrogen sector
PROJECTS & CHINA’S ongoing efforts to develop its hydro- included offshore electrolysis as well as hydrogen
COMPANIES gen sector continued this week with the news storage and transport at sea.
that state-owned China National Offshore Oil This came after industrial gas and engineer-
Corp. (CNOOC) had teamed up with China Gas ing company Linde announced in July 2020 that
Holdings to co-operate in the space. it had signed a memorandum of understanding
China Gas said in an April 12 filing to the (MoU) with CNOOC Energy Technology &
Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) that it had Services to jointly develop the Chinese hydro-
agreed on April 8 to work on a number of hydro- gen industry.
gen projects with the state major. The two companies agreed to explore invest-
These include developing a skid-mounted ment opportunities in hydrogen production and
natural gas-to-hydrogen production system, filling facilities as well as investigate additional
building hydrogen refuelling stations as well as industrial applications for hydrogen.
storage and refuelling equipment, and renovat- CNOOC is not the only state oil and gas com-
ing and expanding natural gas refuelling stations pany with an interest in the country’s hydrogen
and hydrogen refuelling design. potential, with Sinopec committing in February
“The group is convinced that rapid devel- to building 100 hydrogen refuelling stations this
opment in the hydrogen industry in China will year. The country’s largest refiner aims to expand
promote the sustainable growth in the overall this number to 1,000 by the end of 2025.
natural gas industry, and play an important role Sinopec’s announcement drove investment
in achieving the Group’s strategic goal of long- bank Morgan Stanley to raise its 2025 forecast
term sustainable development,” China Gas said. for the number of Chinese hydrogen stations
This is not CNOOC’s first foray into the from 580 to 2,000. Morgan Stanley analyst Jack
hydrogen space, with the company reportedly Lu said: “Sinopec’s ambitious hydrogen develop-
having issued a tender in September 2020 in ment plan in 2021-2025 will speed up fuel cell
search of a partner with expertise in fields that penetration significantly.”
Frozen Iranian funds in
South Korea in focus
POLICY IRAN has released the South Kore- Seoul is unlikely to allow Iran to access any
an-flagged tanker Hankuk Chemi, seized of the funds without the agreement of close ally
by its forces in January, with the move Washington, thus the freeing of the tanker could
possibly indicating that Seoul and Tehran even relate to the wider issue of advancing ongo-
have made progress in unfreezing $7bn ing negotiations in Vienna that could eventu-
of Iranian funds frozen in South Korean ally bring the US and Iran to the table to restart
banks by US sanctions. mutual compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 15 15•April•2021
