Petronas, TotalEnergies sign deals on carbon storage in Malaysia, solar power in Australia

French energy giant TotalEnergies and Malaysian petroleum powerhouse Petronas have signed two independent deals at the Energy Asia event in Kuala Lumpur, strengthening ties between the two companies.

In the first deal, TotalEnergies, Petronas and Japan's Mitsui will develop a carbon-storage project in Southeast Asia. The partners plan to evaluate several CO2 storage sites – including saline aquifers and depleted offshore fields – in the Malay Basin, with the aim of developing a CO2 merchant storage service.

The agreement was signed by Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies, Tan Sri Tengku Muhammad Taufik, President and Group CEO of Petronas, and Toru Matsui, Senior Executive Managing Officer of Mitsui & Co. In a statement, TotalEnergies' Pouyanné said his company would bring to the partnership its "strong CCS expertise, anchored in Europe" and that the project would contribute to meeting the company' carbon storage capacity target of 10 million tons per year by 2030.

In the second deal, TotalEnergies signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Petronas' clean energy arm, Gentari Renewables, to develop a 100 MW solar project in Queensland, Australia. The project, dubbed Pleasant Hills, will supply low-carbon electricity to Gladstone LNG, which operates gas production and processing facilities.

TotalEnergies and Petronas each hold a 27.5 percent stake in Gladstone LNG; the two companies are already collaborating in the upstream sector in eight countries around the world.