South Korea’s SK Eyes Hydrogen Biz

South Korea’s SK Holdings is looking to enter the hydrogen industry and has set up a new unit dedicated for the purpose, it said on December 1 in a statement.

SK Holding's new unit consists of 20 experts from parent firm SK Group’s energy-related units such as SK Innovation and SK E&S. The aim is to build a hydrogen 'production-distribution-supply' ecosystem.

SK E&S plans to build a 30,000 metric tons/year liquefied hydrogen production facility by 2023 to supply liquefied hydrogen to the large urban areas. The company, South Korea’s largest LNG supplier, is also looking to operate an eco-friendly blue hydrogen mass production system. It imports more than 3mn mt/yr of LNG and plans to additionally produce 250,000 mt of blue hydrogen from 2025 by using natural gas. SK Holdings is planning to produce green hydrogen as well, using renewable energy such as solar and wind power. 

Through all these initiatives, SK Holdings expects to produce 280,000 mt of hydrogen by 2025 and will use SK Energy's gas stations and freight truck rest areas as green energy service hubs to supply the fuel to vehicles, while actively developing demand for power generation such as fuel cell power plants.