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.
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).
CWP Global has selected US-based engineering organisation Bechtel to support the development of large-scale green hydrogen and ammonia facilities in northwest Africa. CWP Global is leading development of two Supergiants in the region: the AMAN project in Mauritania (renewable ammonia), and the AMUN project in Morocco (renewable fertilisers). In other engineering news, Total Eren has selected UK-based Wood to develop the production complex for its H2 Magallanes project. Wood is already engaged in two significant blue ammonia projects (Al Ruwais, UAE, and the Barents Blue project in Norway).
A series of new announcements illustrates the growing importance of Egypt, the Suez Gulf and the area designated the Suez Canal Economic Zone to the ammonia energy transition:
Scatec will partner with a series of Egyptian government entities to develop a green ammonia plant in Ain Sokhna, adjacent to the Suez Canal. The project partners have already indicated that the one million per year facility could be expanded in the future to a production capacity of three million tonnes of green ammonia. Growing green ammonia markets in European & Asia are being targeted as export destinations.
Four "catalytic" projects will provide momentum for the new roadmap, driving the rollout of at least 15 GW of electrolysis capacity between them by 2040. Ammonia is a feature of all these kick-off projects, and the government sees ammonia's primary role in the transition as decarbonising energy-intensive industries in South Africa.