Jakarta. Indonesia and South Korea are in talks to tap the archipelagic nation's carbon storage potential, according to a diplomat, although any substantial progress will hinge on feasibility studies.

Countries are looking to lock their carbon dioxide away from the atmosphere by injecting it into deep geological formations to slash industrial emissions.

Indonesia has ample potential in the process better known as carbon capture and storage (CCS). Indonesian saline aquifers —  a type of underground rock formation — boast at least 500 gigatons of carbon storage capacity. The potential in depleted oil and gas reservoirs hit 4 gigatons, government estimates show. 

To the press, Kim Chanwoo, the minister counsellor for the economic section at the South Korean Embassy in Indonesia, recently said that both countries already had an underlying memorandum of understanding (MoU) on CCS technologies. The document — which could unlock cross-border CCS linkages — was among the souvenirs that President Prabowo Subianto had brought home from his Blue House trip earlier this year.

Chanwoo also went on to say that they recently arranged a bilateral energy forum to follow up on the opportunities.

“Discussions are taking place. Many companies are interested in using a lot of carbon storage potential in Indonesia,” Chanwoo told a media workshop in Jakarta.

Chanwoo expects the details to come out “in due course”.

He did not name a specific South Korean company, but admitted that getting the project off the ground would require technical feasibility studies.

In April, Pertamina Hulu Energi (PHE), the upstream sector subsidiary of the state-owned energy giant, struck a CCS-related MoU with American oil powerhouse ExxonMobil and South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate SK Group.

Pertamina claimed that this deal could lead to a cross-border CCS mechanism that would connect South Korean industrial emitters with Indonesia’s carbon storage.

PHE also clinched a separate MoU with the Seoul-based POSCO International for possibly a CCS hub in Indonesia.

These MoUs, however, are only initial frameworks for further studies and discussions, according to PHE at the time.

“None of these documents are commercially binding investment commitments,” its press statement reads.

Indonesia registered nearly $1.7 billion in investment inflows from South Korea between January and September 2026. This made South Korea the country’s sixth-biggest source of foreign direct investment.

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The workshop was part of the Indonesian Next Generation Journalist Network on Korea program. Hosting this capacity-building program are the foreign policy think tank FPCI and the Korea Foundation.

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