POSCO, Hancock to invest $200 mn to raise Senex's gas output

South Korea’s POSCO International Co. and its Australian mining partner Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd. will invest A$300 million ($200 million) in Senex Energy Co. to boost the Australia-based unit's gas production, POSCO said on Sunday.

In April of this year, they jointly acquired coal seam gas producer Senex Energy Co. for A$815 million. POSCO commands 50.1% of Senex.

The A$300 million investment is part of POSCO’s plan, announced in June, that it would more than treble the natural gas production from Senex’s two gas fields in Australia by 2025.

Both POSCO and Hancock plan to increase Senex’s gas production volume to 60 petajoules (PJ) by the end of 2025 from the current 20 PJ. Sixty PJ equals 1.2 million tons of liquefied natural gas.

Some of the increased natural gas output, or up to 400,000 tons by 2025, will be shipped to South Korea.

“Global competition to secure energy and the coal-to-gas shift will likely push the natural gas price higher for a longer period of time,” said a POSCO International official.

“It’s the right time now to develop additional gas fields.”

POSCO is looking to acquire other gas fields.

The world’s fifth-largest steelmaker has been expanding its partnership with Hancock since 2010 from minerals used in rechargeable batteries to energy development.

For renewable energy, POSCO International and CS Energy, owned by the government of Queensland, will break ground for a solar power demonstration product line in the fourth quarter of this year.

Once its testing operation is completed by the fourth quarter of next year, both companies will begin to produce green hydrogen, or hydrogen generated by solar energy.

Write to Kyung-Min Kang at kkm1026@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article