Marubeni & Exxon: CCS-based ammonia from the Gulf Coast to Japan
By on May 12, 2025
Click to learn more. Marubeni will offtake 250,000 tons per year of CCS-based ammonia from Exxon’s project in Baytown USA, for co-firing at the Kobe power plant in Japan (pictured).
Through a newly signed offtake agreement, Marubeni Corporation will offtake about 250,000 tons per year of CCS-based ammonia from Exxon Mobil’s facility in Baytown, Texas. Exxon plans to produce low-carbon hydrogen with a CO2 capture and sequestration rate capacity of 98%. The hydrogen will in turn be used for low-carbon ammonia production. As part of this partnership, Marubeni will acquire an equity stake in the project.
On completion, the Baytown facility will produce an estimated 1 billion cubic feet (bcf) per day of hydrogen and upwards of 1 million tons of ammonia annually, with FID expected this year. ADNOC, Mitsubishi, SK Inc. (equity partners and off takers), and Air Liquide (air separation technology provider) have all joined the project recently. Exxon is also in discussion with Trammo over the offtake of between 300,000 to 500,000 tons per year of ammonia from Baytown, with Trammo to market, deliver and distribute the ammonia to Europe and other markets.
This is another positive step forward for our landmark project. By using American-produced natural gas we can boost global energy supply, support Japan’s decarbonization goals and create jobs at home. Our strong relationship with Marubeni sets the stage for delivering low-carbon ammonia from the U.S. to Japan for years to come.
Barry Engle, president of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, in Marubeni’s official press release, 8 May 2025
Marubeni will take this first step together with ExxonMobil in the aim of establishing a global low-carbon ammonia supply chain for Japan through the supply of low-carbon ammonia to the Kobe Power Plant. Additionally, we aim to collaborate beyond this supply chain and strive towards the launch of a global market for low-carbon ammonia. We hope to continue to actively cooperate with ExxonMobil, with a view of utilizing this experience and relationship we have built to strategically decarbonize our power projects in Japan and Southeast Asia in the near future.
Yoshiaki Yokota, Senior Managing Executive Officer, Member of Corporate Management Committee, Supervisor of Energy & Chemicals Div. and Power & Infrastructure Services Div., Marubeni Corporation, in his organisation’s official press release, 8 May 2025
Coal co-firing at Kobe
Marubeni will supply most of this ammonia to the Kobe Power Plant, where plans are in place to begin ~20% ammonia co-firing in two units by 2030. An amount of low-carbon ammonia will also go towards the decarbonisation of Japan’s steel manufacturing, chemical, transportation and other hard-to-abate sectors. Co-firing at Kobe, Hekinan and two other Japanese coal power plants (Hokkaido Electric’s Tomato-Atsuma plant and Shikoku Electric Power’s Saijo plant) is included in a long-term, country-wide decarbonization scheme run by METI (the LTDA or Long-Term Decarbonization Auction), totaling around 860 MW of generating capacity. This is a small fraction of the total awarded capacity across all energy sources (twin auction rounds of 5 GW each completed so far), but a big step towards the 3 million tons per year ammonia fuel import target set by METI in 2021.