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Asia Pacific news
Regional update
The COVID-19 situation is still worrying across the Asia Pacific region with India taking the worst hit with almost 4,000 fatalities per day. Other APAC countries are Azman Nasir also registering significant increases of daily cases compared to earlier in the year. Vaccination programmes are underway in most countries with Singapore and Taiwan leading in terms of the number of people having been vaccinated. Travelling within the region and to and from the region is still very much restricted as countries are wary of opening their borders in fear of potential new waves of COVID-19 spread. In May and June our focus has been supporting the recruitment of potential speakers for the Virtual Energy Exports Conference on 14 to 17 June 2021. As far as APAC is concerned, speaking sessions are now almost confirmed and will feature key industry players from countries such as Taiwan, Australia, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Companies and organisations participating as speakers for sessions hosted by EIC APAC include Petronas, Shell, Sapura Energy, Reliance Oil, Engie, Western Australia Government, Yara Australia and the Ministry of Energy Sri Lanka. In the coming months we will be featuring our new ASEAN members as speakers in a series of webinars in June, July and August. These sessions will be a good opportunity for other EIC members in other regions to get to know these companies and possibly strike up some new relationships and tie-ups in pursuing business opportunities in the region. In light of travel restrictions, which are looking to continue for some time yet, webinars like these should be helpful for UK and international companies to meet regional companies virtually. There may also be opportunities for a number of one-to-one networking sessions after the webinars. We are happy to announce the arrival of two new energy analysts – Azzahrah Juraimi and Farhan Amran – and a new membership manager, Adhwa Sany. We are also expecting to have a new office and events co-ordinator starting in July 2021.
Azman Nasir, Head of Asia Pacific azman.nasir@the-eic.com
Regional news
South Korea to build world’s largest floating offshore wind farm
South Korea has unveiled ambitious plans to invest US$32bn (KRW36tn) in what is said would be the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm. This is a key project needed to achieve the country’s goal of zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The 6GW complex will be located off the coast of Ulsan City, at the Donghae 1 gas field, which is the country’s first commercially viable offshore natural gas field. It is targeted to come online by 2030. Additionally, ten major South Korean companies, municipalities and organisations are also planning to develop an offshore hydrogen production plant which will be powered by a portion of the power produced at the Donghae 1 floating offshore wind farm.
Eni and Santos eye upstream carbon capture collaboration opportunities
Eni and Santos have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding to jointly seek collaboration opportunities in northern Australia and Timor-Leste. One of the areas of interest is the potential joint development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities, serving not only assets owned by the companies, but also third-party projects in the Darwin area, with the aim of facilitating the establishment of a carbon management hub in the Northern Territory. Potential co-operation in new upstream development opportunities in relation to other offshore stranded resources located in northern Australia is also an area of interest for the duo.
