SK E&S Co., a South Korean liquefied natural gas importer, has built the world’s largest hydrogen liquefaction plant in Incheon, west of Seoul, the company said on Wednesday. The facility is expected to fuel the country's transition to a hydrogen economy.

The unit of SK Group spent about 700 billion won ($513 million) on its construction from late 2021 to 2023. It consists of three production facilities, each with a capacity of producing 30 tons of liquefied hydrogen daily, as well as six 20-ton storage facilities.

The plant can produce 30,000 tons of liquefied hydrogen annually — the world’s largest output and enough to charge 5,000 hydrogen buses.

The plant purifies gaseous by-product hydrogen generated from nearby SK Incheon Petrochem Co.’s facility into high-purity hydrogen and cools it to cryogenic temperatures of minus 253 degrees Celsius to turn it into liquefied hydrogen.

On Wednesday, the company and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy held the plant's completion ceremony at the complex of IGE Co., a liquefied hydrogen distributor under SK E&S.

Liquefied hydrogen has one-800th the volume of gaseous hydrogen and is more than 10 times as efficient to transport, making it ideal for the storage and transportation of large volumes of hydrogen.

It can be transported even at low pressure, improving safety and charging speed.

Regarded as a game changer, hydrogen boasts ultra-high purity so it can be used in high-tech industries such as semiconductors and defense.

Only nine countries, including the US and Japan, operate hydrogen liquefaction facilities due to the sophistication of the technology needed to process them.

SK E&S will set up 20 liquefied hydrogen charging stations across Korea this year and double the number by 2026.