Correlation for effective surface area is one of the important input for modeling of gas absorption in countercurrent packed column. Although the correlation previously developed by other researchers was able to provide quite decent prediction of carbon dioxide (CO2) absorption system, improvement still need to be done especially for high pressure condition whereby consideration for the decrease of effective surface area due to severe vapour backmixing situation needs to be taken into account. In this work, pressure dependent correction correlation was developed by incorporating the ratio of liquid to gas densities. The correlation developed in this study was found to successfully improve the prediction trend of the CO2 concentration profile along the column. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd.