Lotte Chem, Air Liquide Korea launch JV for hydrogen business

South Korea’s chemical firm Lotte Chemical Corp. and Air Liquide Korea, the Korean unit of the French company Air Liquide SA, announced on Tuesday that they have completed the establishment of a joint venture to scale up the hydrogen supply chain for mobility markets in South Korea.

The two companies have accelerated the launch of the JV since they signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in May last year and signed an agreement to establish a JV in April this year.

The JV obtained approval for the business combination last month under the name of "Lotte Air Liquide Enerhy Co., Ltd."

The company name "Enerhy" is a compound word for energy and hydrogen, meaning that it is a company that leads energy conversion in the domestic hydrogen energy market, starting with mobility.

Kim So-mi, vice president of Air Liquide Korea's hydrogen energy business unit, will serve as the first CEO of the JV.

As the first project, the JV will build a large-scale high-pressure hydrogen filling center, which will use by-product hydrogen from Lotte Chemical, on the site of the Korean company's Daesan plant.

The project is scheduled to start in the second half of 2024. The center will have the largest hydrogen production capacity in Korea, with an annual capacity of more than 5,500 tons.

This is enough to charge 4,400 cars or 600 commercial buses per day.

 "We will preempt the mobility market in the metropolitan area through the Daesan center," a company official said, adding the JV also plans to build a hydrogen filling center in Ulsan to cover the southeast.

Write to Ik-Hwan Kim at lovepen@hankyung.com