LSB Industries will partner with thyssenkrupp and Bloom Energy to develop renewable ammonia production at its existing facility in Pryor, Oklahoma. 30 MW of electrolysers will feed the production of 30,000 tonnes of renewable ammonia per year, with two electrolyser technologies (solid-oxide and alkaline) working side-by-side.
Air Products, OQ, and ACWA Power will jointly develop a world-scale, multi-billion dollar renewable ammonia production facility in Salalah, Oman. The partners indicate the new design will be similar to the NEOM ammonia project in Saudi Arabia. The new announcement means there are five significant renewable ammonia projects under development in Oman: two in Salalah on Oman’s south coast, and three in Duqm, including the GEO Supergiant project.
New project details have emerged from the AMAN mega-project in Mauritania. CWP Global indicates the project will include 18GW of wind capacity and 12GW of solar capacity in northwest Mauritania, producing 10 million tonnes of renewable ammonia per year for export and local use.
Swedish technology developer Metacon has delivered an ammonia cracking prototype unit to Pherousa Green Technologies in Norway for development of an ammonia-fed, zero emissions maritime propulsion system. The prototype itself was developed by Metacon subsidiary Helbio, who report the cracker achieves conversion rates of 99.3% with no ammonia slip, enabling it to feed a high-purity PEM fuel cell.
The European Commission has announced its latest plan to reduce the EU’s dependence on fossil imports. RePowerEU will encourage a full switch from fossil-based hydrogen to renewable hydrogen, based on the use of carbon contracts for difference. A hydrogen utilisation target of 20 million tonnes per year has also been set, composed of 10 million tonnes from domestic production and 10 million tonnes of imports. Of these imports, the EU has also forecast 4 million tonnes will be in the form of hydrogen-as-ammonia. The new plan marks a significant increase in ambition from the Fit-for-55 package released in July 2021.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will contribute to three ammonia energy projects via the latest funding round of its Net Zero Innovation Portfolio:
Total has signed a new MoU with the General Authority for Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZONE) to develop a renewable ammonia project in Ain Sokhna, Egypt. The first phase targets production of 300,000 tonnes of renewable ammonia per year. SCZONE is now involved with six renewable hydrogen-based projects near the Suez Canal totaling more than $10 billion in investment, and featuring about 1.5 million tonnes of renewable ammonia production in the first phase (expanding to at least 6 million tonnes per year).
As part of a new round of funding announcements, the US Department of Energy will contribute nearly $10 million to three significant ammonia energy initiatives:
Nutrien has announced plans for a $2 billion, million-tonne-per-year CCS ammonia production facility in Geismar, Louisiana. Nutrien will partner with Denbury, who will handle the construction & operation of necessary CCS infrastructure, with permanent underground sequestration to occur. Mitsubishi Corporation has agreed to off take up to 40% of the produced ammonia, which will be exported to the “Asian fuel market”.
The state government of Queensland has signed a new agreement with the Port of Rotterdam to develop an ammonia export supply chain between Australia and the EU. The announcement comes the same week that the Port of Rotterdam authority set a target of supplying industrial centers in northwest Europe with 4.6 million tonnes of hydrogen by 2030 - the vast majority of which will need to be imported. As to the question of when those imports will begin, the Rocky Mountain Institute has released a new report indicating the EU should be ready to receive renewable hydrogen as soon as significant capacity comes online in 2024.