By making selective investments in the oil projects, the firm expects to ensure production and early cost recovery. Credit: wasi1370 from Pixabay.

Japan’s oil and gas explorer Inpex has unveiled plans to invest up to $38bn (JPY4.4tn), over the next nine years, in potential growth areas.

The firm intends to allocate $8.66bn (JPY1tn) of the total investment plan to decarbonisation projects, including hydrogen and ammonia.

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Inpex CEO Takayuki Ueda was cited by Reuters as saying, in a news briefing: “As a pioneer in energy transformation, we aim to provide a stable supply of diverse and clean energy sources including oil and natural gas, hydrogen, and renewable power.”

As part of the new long-term business plan, the company plans to invest in LNG as a key growth fuel while focusing on reducing CO₂ emissions.

By making selective investments in oil projects, the firm expects to ensure production and early cost recovery, despite the uncertainty in the long-term demand outlook, Ueda said.

Inpex has set a target to reach a commercial hydrogen production capacity of more than 100,000tpa by 2030.

The company will focus on developing offshore wind and geothermal power projects to increase its renewable production capacity to up to 2GW.

It also plans to use carbon capture and utilization and storage (CCUS) technology to inject 2.5 million tonnes of CO₂ a year, by the end of this decade.

Inpex is also planning to build one of the world’s largest carbon capture facilities in Australia, with an investment of up to $868m (JPY100bn), reported Nikkei Asia.

The project will be equipped to capture and store the CO₂ produced by the Ichthys gas project, located offshore Australia. Inpex operates this gas project, along with many joint venture partners.

Planned to commence in 2026 at the earliest, the carbon capture and storage project will have a peak annual capacity of more than seven million tonnes.

Inpex is currently in talks with firms for the proposed project, for which the site selection process is due to start this year, at the earliest.

The Japanese firm also reported a net profit of $1.9bn (JPY223bn) in 2021, against a net loss of $966.5m (JPY111.6bn) in the previous year, benefiting from the rising oil and gas prices. The net sales stood at $10.7bn (JPY1,244bn) in 2021, against $6.6bn (JPY771bn) in 2022.

Last month, Inpex announced plans to undertake oil and natural gas exploratory drilling operations, offshore the Shimane and Yamaguchi prefectures, in Japan.