SK Corp to invest tens of billions of shares in US hydrogen firm Monolith

SK Corp., the holding company of SK Group, has decided to invest tens of billions of won worth of shares in Monolith, an American hydrogen company, and plans to sign a contract within this month.

SK is expanding its steps in the field of hydrogen energy, which is attracting attention as a key area for investment in the environment, society and governance (ESG) field.

According to related industries on Tuesday, SK Co., Ltd. is planning to participate as a major strategic investor (SI) in the Monolith funding program being developed by the US local energy company NeXtra. It is known that the specific share ratio and investment amount are being adjusted.

Established in 2012, Monolith is a company with its own technology to extract hydrogen through carbon processing with carbon dioxide generated in this process processed into solid carbon black, which is a material for rubber or ink. It is a technology classified as "green hydrogen", made through 100 per cent water decomposition, and carbon processing that reduces greenhouse gas emissions with "hydrogen cyanide" as an intermediate step of the "blue hydrogen".

Monolith is known as a highly profitable company, not only producing carbon black by applying cyanohydrogen technology, but also producing agricultural fertilizers by mixing nitrogen gas with extracted hydrogen. Currently, it is constructing a pilot plant in Hallum, Nebraska, with a cost of about 100 billion won, and has recently announced an investment plan for the second plant worth an additional one trillion won. SK is expected to continue technical alliances and production investments with Monolith by participating in this funding as an SI.