Establishing commercial-scale ammonia handling capacity in Japan

By Geofrey Njovu on November 20, 2024

An end-to-end supply chain for mega-scale ammonia imports into Japan.

Click to enlarge. Mitsubishi Corporation and Idemitsu are working towards building a multi million-tons-per-year ammonia handling capacity in Japan, enabling imports from overseas production hubs by 2030.  Source: Mitsubishi Corporation.

In Baytown, Texas, ExxonMobil is developing a CCS-based hydrogen and ammonia mega-production project, with FID expected in 2025. The project has annual production targets of about 900,000 tons and upwards of 1 million tonnes of hydrogen and ammonia (respectively) by 2029. A sizable proportion of this ammonia will be shipped to the Japanese market.

Across the Pacific from Texas, Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsubishi Corporation are hard at work to develop Japanese ammonia handling terminals at a scale comparable to the Baytown project output. The two parties have recently agreed to jointly study the structuring and development of a low-carbon ammonia supply chain to enable large-scale imports from overseas markets, with the Baytown project front-of-mind.

Ammonia handling terminal development

Mitsubishi, a partner in the Baytown project, is developing the Namikata Terminal in Imabari City into an ammonia hub with a target handling capacity of 1 million tons per year by 2030. Namikata will supply ammonia to local industries including the electricity, transportation and chemical manufacturing. To support this, the “Council for utilising Namikata Terminal as a Hub for introducing Fuel Ammonia” was formed in April 2023. This is a partnership between Mitsubishi and prospective ammonia consumers in the Shikoku and Chugoku regions, a high GHG emitting area in which the Japanese government intends to expand ammonia and hydrogen uptake for power generation.

At its Tokuyama Complex in Shunan City, Idemitsu has, in partnership with other players in the Shunan Industrial Complex, developed an ammonia import terminal which is expected to handle over 1 million tons throughput each year by 2030.

As active participants in the upstream (production projects like Baytown) and midstream (import terminals and supply to ammonia end users) markets, both Idemitsu and Mitsubishi will play a crucial role in unlocking an end-to-end supply chain and increase the uptake of low carbon ammonia in Japan.