Posco International to invest 3.8 trillion won in energy business

Posco International, which is set for a merger with Posco Energy, will invest 3.8 trillion won ($2.7 billion) over the next three years in its energy businesses, the trading company said Friday.

Posco International CEO Joo Si-bo speaks during an extraordinary shareholders' meeting held at Songdo, Incheon, Friday. [POSCO INTERNATIONAL]

Posco International, which is set for a merger with Posco Energy, will invest 3.8 trillion won ($2.7 billion) over the next three years in its energy businesses, the trading company said Friday.

Posco International’s merger with Posco Energy, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant operator, was approved at an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting held at the company’s headquarters in Songdo, Incheon, Friday.

The merger, which was first announced in August, will be completed by Jan. 1, 2023. Posco Energy will be merged into Posco International at a ratio of 1 to 1.1626920, and the largest shareholder of the resulting company will be Posco Holdings with a 70.7 percent share.

When the merger is complete, the resulting company will have a full LNG product chain from development to storage and power generation.

During the shareholder meeting Friday, Posco International CEO Joo Si-bo said that the company will invest a total of 3.8 trillion won starting next year through 2025.

The company plans to pour 1.3 trillion won into gas resource development overseas. The goal is to triple natural gas production in Australia by 2025 and expand production bases into Indonesia.

About 1.6 trillion won will be spent on expanding domestic LNG capacity. The company’s LNG trading volume will be 4.65 million tons with a storage capacity of 1.81 kiloliters by 2026, from the previous 730,000 kiloliters.

The company is also investing 700 billion won in less carbon-heavy businesses such as energy generation fueled by hydrogen-natural gas blend.

Posco International has set a plan to invest 200 billion won in renewable energy, which involves wind farm, solar energy and ammonia. It aims to bring up the renewable energy generation capacity to about 0.7 gigawatts from the current 0.1 gigawatts by 2025.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]