Shell will acquire a 35% stake and operatorship of the Green Energy Oman (GEO) project, a 25 GW renewable ammonia supergiant under development on the Oman coast. The news is the latest in a series of ammonia energy announcements from the oil & gas majors.
INPEX has selected Tsubame BHB and Air Liquide as technology providers for the demonstration project, which will utilise autothermal reforming technology and CCS in depleted gas fields to produce around 500 tonnes of ammonia per year. JOGMEC and NEDO are also supporting the project, with the goal of gaining operational experience with CCS in Japan.
H2Carrier and wind project developer Anori will jointly develop Greenland’s first commercial wind farm, which will power the offshore production of ammonia via H2Carrier’s P2XFloater™ vessels. The project could produce as much as 900,000 tonnes of ammonia per year, targeting export markets. H2Carrier also announced that Larsen & Toubro will design & construct the “topside” sections of the P2XFloater™ vessels in India, with the hulls to be built in Asia.
IHI Corporation has announced three new ammonia partnerships this month. In the UAE, it will embark on Dubai’s first “green” ammonia feasibility study with the Emirates National Oil Company Group, with a solar-powered pilot plant to be built. In Malaysia, IHI and Petronas subsidiary Gentari Hydrogen will explore ammonia production from solar power in Johor, Malaysia. And following its investment in US-based Starfire Energy in November, IHI and Japan-based Angel Navi will identify more decarbonisation venture opportunities in Japan and around the world.
This week we explore three mega-scale production projects planned for Texas. On the Gulf Coast, Avina Clean Hydrogen is developing a 100% renewable-powered ammonia plant. In northern Texas, Air Products and AES are planning a 1.4 GW wind & solar-powered hydrogen production facility targeting the heavy trucking market, and in Beaumont OCI has just broken ground on its new million-tonne-per-year CCS ammonia plant.
The WA state government, the Port of Rotterdam and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research will embark on a trilateral export study. The study will help fast-track development of Oakajee Mid West ammonia export hub. The state government has also launched new guidelines for land-use for large-scale renewable hydrogen projects, and announced the creation of three entities to help projects move through the approvals process.
The Maritime & Port Authority of Singapore and the country’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) have jointly launched an EOI process to build, own and operate low or zero-carbon ammonia power generation and bunkering projects on Jurong Island. A project lifetime of 25 years is stipulated, with operations to begin in 2027 or before.
The Port of Rotterdam Authority will lead a feasibility study into the establishment of an onsite, million-tonne-per-year ammonia cracker. The announcement caps a big year of progress for the Port of Rotterdam, with preparations well underway to receive ammonia imports into Europe.
In this week’s maritime ammonia news:
COP27 saw an exciting number of green shipping corridor announcements. But the question remains: how do we actually build them? Earlier this year, the Maersk McKinney Møller Centre for Zero Carbon Shipping launched a Feasibility Phase Blueprint, setting out some key assessment criteria to consider. At the recent annual AEA conference in Phoenix, we took a group of sixty participants through the criteria, asking how and where the ammonia sector should engage.