A unit of US energy giant ExxonMobil has awarded South Korea’s Posco with technology qualification to construct LNG onshore storage tanks out of high manganese steel.
The certificate delivery ceremony took place in South Korea on May 25 attended by ExxonMobil Upstream Company’s Peter Clark, senior VP of LNG, and head of Posco Technical Research Laboratories, Se-Don Joo, according to a short statement by ExxonMobil LNG.
Steel maker Posco said in a separate statement it hopes this approval would lead to the company supplying ExxonMobil’s global LNG projects.
Posco and ExxonMobil signed a technical agreement in October 2020 to expand the use of high manganese steel in the energy industry.
ExxonMobil tested the steel for two years before approving it for the storage and transportation of LNG, Posco said.
According to Posco, it has already applied the steel, which contains from 10 percent to up to 30 percent of manganese, in the fifth tank of its LNG import terminal at Gwangyang.
In addition, it also used this steel for fuel tanks of about 20 LNG-powered ships, according to the statement.
Beside LNG tanks, the two firms would also collaborate in hydrogen and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology, Posco added.