Abdul Aziz is seen speaking during the RHB Fireside Chat on the topic of ‘Sarawak 2030: Turning Expectations into Reality’.
KUCHING (September 8): The Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) is looking at a hydrogen production rate of 10,000 tonnes per annum by 2023-2025.
According to chairman Tan Sri Datuk Amar Abdul Aziz Husain, SEDC will be looking at hydrogen production in the petrochemical hub in Bintulu. Currently, the corporation has 1,000 acres of land in Bintulu which it will develop into a petrochemical hub and medical hub.
“The petrochemical hub will be housing most of the big petrochemical industries, for example Shell and Petronas is supposed to be there, our own methanol plant will be there, together with the other associate industries later on which will make use of methanol as their raw material,” Abdul Aziz said during the RHB Fireside Chat on the topic of ‘Sarawak 2030: Turning Expectations into Reality’.
“At the same time, in the petrochemical hub, we will also be looking at the hydrogen production.”
On the hydrogen economy in Sarawak, SEDC will be starting this by producing large scale hydrogen from the available energy resources from the state’s hydroelectric dams.
Abdul Aziz said this hydrogen, termed as ‘green hydrogen’, has very high demand and commands higher price than the other hydrogen which are produced from other methods.
“We have partners looking at this, and we hope that Sarawak will be one of the first country to export hydrogen to Korea, Japan and other countries,” he continued.
“We have partners who have been interested, from Japan, Korea and even from Australia, who would like to actually invest in this large scale hydrogen production.
“We are looking at hydrogen production at the rate of 10,000 tonnes per annum or per year, by 2023 or 2025, and later to scale it up to 50,000 tonnes and even 80,000 tonnes, depending on the availability of power that are available to us.
“This hydrogen will kickstart the hydrogen economy in Sarawak, we will use this hydrogen for our autonomous rail transit (ART) system and also for our other systems, maybe even buses and vehicles later on that will be running on hydrogen.”
Abdul Aziz added that with the facilities and power that we have and other dams that could be built later on, SEDC should be able to provide cheap hydrogen to the people in Sarawak.
“At the same time, we have formed a company called SEDC Energy, which will be looking at hydrogen production and also will be building to multi-fuel station which will be able to provide not only conventional fuel, but also to provide the hydrogen fuel and also electric charging facilities for those who own electric cars which we now expect to become more popular as the price of the vehicles will go down.
“This is also our direction, our Chief Minister is looking at how we can go into this business, by assembling hydrogen and electric cars in the state so that we can become one of the pioneers in these areas.”