Upcoming Event

Vietnam–Korea CCUS Research Workshop 🌏

On October 20, researchers from Vietnam and Korea gather in Songdo for an afternoon of CCS research exchange — an invited lecture from the Geological Survey of Canada, eight research presentations spanning basalt mineral trapping to underground hydrogen storage, and an open discussion on where the collaboration goes next. Registration is open.

📅 October 20, 2026 · 13:00–18:00 📍 Orakai Songdo Park Hotel, Incheon 🇻🇳 Vietnam × Korea 🇰🇷 🌱 CCUS Research Exchange

Carbon storage is a problem that rewards comparing notes across borders, and Vietnam and Korea are approaching it from usefully different starting points. This October, CURE Lab hosts a one-day workshop bringing the two research communities into the same room.

When

October 20, 2026

13:00 – 18:00

Where

Orakai Songdo Park Hotel

Songdo, Incheon, Korea

Organized by

Prof. Hyundon Shin

Inha University

Program

1 invited lecture
8 research talks

About 30 participants

01

Why Vietnam and Korea on CCS

Vietnam committed to net zero by 2050, and carbon capture, utilization and storage is named explicitly in its National Strategy for Climate Change to 2050. What makes the Vietnamese case interesting to a Korean research group is the geology behind that commitment: the country has substantial offshore oil and gas infrastructure, and a national energy plan that puts real numbers against storage.

34

offshore oil and gas fields evaluated for CO₂ storage potential

~12 Gt

estimated national storage capacity across aquifers, depleted fields and coal beds

1 Mt/yr

national capture-capacity target by 2040, rising to 3–6 Mt/yr by 2050

Korea’s position is close to the mirror image. The emissions targets are comparably hard, the engineering capability is well developed — but domestic storage capacity is tightly constrained, which pushes Korean CCS research toward making the most of difficult reservoirs and toward partnerships abroad. Two research programs working the same physics under opposite constraints tend to have a great deal to say to each other.

02

Who is coming

🇻🇳

3 talks

Vietnamese delegation

  • Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT)
🇰🇷

5 talks

Korean institutions

  • Inha University
  • Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM)
  • Kongju National University
  • Seoul National University
  • Ewha Womans University

The Korean side deliberately spans more than universities. KIGAM brings the national geoscience institute’s view of how integrated CCS design turns into actual R&D programs, which is a different vantage point from an academic lab — and the talks range from shale characterization and pipeline flow assurance through to underground hydrogen storage, so the afternoon is not narrowly about one reservoir problem.

03

Full program

October 20, 2026 · 13:00–18:00 · Orakai Songdo Park Hotel, Incheon
13:00–13:30
Registration
13:30–14:00
Invited lecture — EGR-CCS: Evaluation of CO₂ storage capacity
Dr. Le-Nguyen VietGeological Survey of Canada
14:00–14:25
CO₂ geological storage in basaltic formations: mineral trapping mechanism and applied geochemical reaction kinetics
Prof. Mai Cao LanHCMUT
14:25–14:50
Assessment of cement sheath integrity under coupled hydro-mechanical effects during CO₂ storage injection in geological formations
Dr. Trong Vinh Bui
Mr. Kieu PhucHCMUT
14:50–15:15
Beyond pore volume: engineering depleted reservoirs for large-scale CO₂ storage, with a Vietnam case study
Dr. Quoc Dung Ta
Dr. Le Nguyen Hai NamHCMUT
15:15–15:30
Tea break
15:30–15:55
Importance of shale characterization for carbon sequestration
Prof. Kyungbook LeeKongju National University
15:55–16:20
Execution of national R&D projects for integrated CCS design based on optimization and nodal analysis, aimed at domestic and global implementation
Dr. Tea-Woo KimKIGAM
16:20–16:45
Design and flow assurance analysis for CO₂ pipeline networks: a case study of the Yeosu Industrial Complex
Prof. Hoonyoung JeongSeoul National University
16:45–17:10
Multiscale joint deformation–BHP data assimilation for CO₂ storage reservoir characterization using ES-MDA
Prof. Honggeun JoInha University
17:10–17:35
Impacts of operational controls on hydrogen recovery factor in a depleted gas reservoir for underground hydrogen storage
Prof. Baehyun MinEwha Womans University
17:35–18:00
Discussion — future collaboration
All

Read down the programme and the shape of the collaboration becomes clear. The Vietnamese talks concentrate on storage security and capacity — mineral trapping in basalt, cement sheath integrity under coupled hydro-mechanical loading, and how much a depleted reservoir can really take once you stop treating pore volume as the answer. The Korean talks run from characterization and national programme design through transport infrastructure to hydrogen. Between them the afternoon covers most of the CCS chain.

04

Part of a wider pattern

🌏 A year of building CCS partnerships

This workshop continues a run of international CCS collaboration for the lab through 2026 — the Thailand–Korea CCUS workshop in Bangkok in February, the Open Porous Media short course with NTNU in June, and the second Inha–Waseda joint workshop in Tokyo in August.

There is a Vietnamese thread already running through the lab's calendar, too. At the closing ceremony of IsCUE 2026 in Daqing it was Prof. Mai Cao Lan — who opens the research programme here — who announced that IsCUE 2027 will be held in Quy Nhon, Vietnam. October's workshop is a welcome chance to strengthen those ties ahead of it.

We look forward to welcoming our Vietnamese colleagues to Songdo on October 20. If you would like to join us, sign up here. 🇻🇳 🤝 🇰🇷