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Undertake Large-scale CO2 Reduction Measure in Indonesia for the Prevention of Global Warming

Jun. 28, 2002

TOKYO(June28,2002)--Nissho Iwai Corporation has formed an alliance with the Indonesian Ministry of Mines and Energy and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., to conduct verification of a project which will contribute to crude oil production increases and greenhouse-gas reductions, through the use of the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) system, which recovers carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facilities and boilers, and injects the recovered CO2 into exhausted oilfields.

The Indonesian government has decided to pursue the potential of EOR as underlying support for crude oil production output from exhausted domestic oilfields, in tandem with the increasing domestic demand for crude oil. Nissho Iwai, in collaboration with the Indonesian government and MHI, not only aims to increase crude oil production through injection of recovered CO2 into exhausted oilfields, but also aims at the prevention of global warming through CO2 fixation in the ground, and will cooperate aggressively in order to achieve the CO2 emission reduction target assigned by the Kyoto Protocol.

Indonesia is the world's largest LNG producing country, and in Badak, East Kalimantan, where 60% of the entire output is produced, CO2, which is included in the gas supply at a rate of approx. 6%, is recovered in the pretreatment process prior to production and is currently being released into the atmosphere. The total amount of gas produced in the Badak district is approx. 3 billion cubic feet/day, and the total emission of CO2 amounts to 180 million cubic feet/day (approx. 9,500 tons). In addition, in order to produce the electricity required for operation of LNG production facilities, over 20,000 tons of CO2 per day is emitted from boilers that are run on natural gas. Adding all these together, over 30,000 tons of CO2 per day, that is, over 11 million tons of CO2 per year is released into the atmosphere in Badak district.

CO2 released into the atmosphere causes global warming, and in order to prevent such, technology development for recovering and reusing CO2 from exhaust gas generated by power plants is advancing. MHI and the Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. have jointly developed a technology to effectively and chemically recover CO2 from exhaust gas, and such technology has been established as the most energy-saving in the world.

Nissho Iwai group focuses its efforts on approaches to LNG-related stream business in the following areas; upstream - participation in resource development and related projects, midstream - transportation and logistics services, and downstream - marketing and provision of sole import agents (representative services), and handles 15 million tons of LNG, which is over 80 percent of the total LNG volume of 18.4 million tons imported from Indonesia to Japan. 

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