In 2025, the pieces are rapidly assembling to enable and accelerate imports of ammonia energy to Japan. This year, government agency METI is due to announce two lots of key funding, including contracts for difference subsidies and development of import infrastructure. Power generation technologies will be commercialised within the next few years, and more maritime players are joining the push to deploy ammonia fuel in Japanese ships.
ExxonMobil and Trammo are in talks which will see the latter offtake 300,000 to 500,000 tons of low-carbon ammonia from the under-development, CCS-based ammonia project in Baytown, Texas.
Idemitsu and Mitsubishi Corporation are developing ammonia handling terminals in Japan to meet the production capacity of overseas projects, such as the million-ton-per-year Baytown project led by Exxon.
ADNOC will acquire a 35% equity stake in the Baytown mega-project, which is targeting the production of 900,000 tons of CCS-based hydrogen per year. Mitsubishi and project lead Exxon will continue negotiations towards a formal offtake and equity agreement.
CF Industries and ExxonMobil will move forward with a carbon capture and sequestration project at CF’s Yazoo City production complex in Mississippi, USA. The new, $100 million project will begin operations in 2028.
Air Liquide will invest up to $850 million to build, own and operate four large air separation units as part of ExxonMobil’s low-carbon hydrogen project in Baytown, Texas. The units will provide nitrogen and oxygen feedstocks to ExxonMobil, which will be used to produce low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia.
With installation and testing of ammonia fuel equipment now complete, a 20% ammonia co-firing demonstration will proceed from April to June this year at the Hekinan power plant. JERA and IHI aim for commercial operations to begin around March 2025. JERA is also exploring part ownership and offtake from Exxon Mobil’s CCS ammonia mega-project in Baytown, Texas.
Through this partnership, Keppel and Exxon Mobil look to leverage their experience to deliver low or zero-carbon hydrogen and ammonia solutions to support Singapore’s quest to decarbonise its power sector.
Exxon Mobil is planning a CCS hydrogen & ammonia production facility at its existing complex in Baytown, Texas, with operations to begin in 2027-8. This week, Korea-based SK Inc. Materials announced they would act as off taker for the CCS ammonia, which will be imported to Korea for use in coal co-combustion.
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.
This week we explore three new partnerships for CCS-based ammonia production in the USA:
ExxonMobil, Grieg Edge, North Ammonia, and GreenH will explore options to transform Exxon’s existing Slagen terminal into a production & distribution hub for renewable ammonia and hydrogen maritime fuels. The group has identified the potential to produce 200,000 tonnes of electrolytic hydrogen production per year at the site, as well as distributing 100,000 tonnes per year of renewable ammonia. Exxon’s wider plans for low-carbon ammonia also include two large-scale production hubs (one each in the US and the UK).
Two recent announcements show Singapore emerging as a center for development of ammonia as a maritime fuel. In both cases, multi-party coalitions, with Singaporean connections, are focusing on ground-breaking work.