The Ministry of Land, Transport and Marine Affairs said Wednesday a site to permanently store about 5.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide was found in the continental shelf southwest of the Ulleung Basin in the East Sea.

Based on Korea’s target to reduce 32 million tons of CO2 annually by 2030 through CO2 capture and storage, the site will be able to store CO2 for more than 150 years.

The ministry confirmed the existence of the geological structure appropriate for CO2 storage in the sedimentary layers between 800 and 3,000 meters below sea level based on analysis of data acquired for the purpose of petroleum and natural gas exploration.

The ministry plans to run a three-dimensional seismic wave test to figure out the geological structure of the potential storage site within this year, and test-drill in 2014 before officially designating the CO2 storage sites in 2015.

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)