The University of Amsterdam and TU Delft will lead an academic-industry consortium that will determine the feasibility of combining ammonia-fed solid-oxide fuel cells with internal combustion engines for maritime propulsion. The AmmoniaDrive project just received over €2 million in support from the Dutch government, and is the latest in a series of hybrid and fuel cell-based propulsion projects using ammonia as an onboard fuel.
Air Products and Gunvor will jointly develop a renewable ammonia import terminal at Gunvor Petroleum’s existing refinery & distribution facilities in Rotterdam Europoort. The partners expect to be providing hydrogen to the Netherlands in 2026, with the new terminal receiving imports of renewable ammonia from Air Products production projects around the world. The new project is now the third ammonia import terminal under development at the Port of Rotterdam, and comes the same week as Dutch gas network operator Gasunie announced that it had started construction of a national hydrogen distribution network in the Netherlands.
OCI will expand its ammonia import terminal at the Port of Rotterdam, increasing throughput capacity from 400,000 tonnes per year to 1.2 million tonnes per year by 2023. A second phase of expansion is planned, and will involve construction of a new, “world-scale” ammonia storage tank to bring throughput capacities above 3 million tonnes per year.
This week we explore announcements about novel electrolyser technologies (Advanced Ionics), funding announcements from Europe (ITM Power, Battolyser and Sunfire), and some gigawatt-scale expansions in manufacturing capacities (Hydrogen Optimized, Nel, Cummins and Sinopec).
In recent updates for the Barents Blue project in far-north Norway:
Gasunie, HES International and Vopak will develop an import terminal for ammonia on Rotterdam’s Maasvlakte, with operations to begin in 2026 under the name ACE Terminal. While green imports are the long-term focus, blue ammonia imports are possible in the initial phase. The design will leverage existing ammonia infrastructure on Maasvlakte. New build features include a deep-sea berth for large vessels and possibly an ammonia cracker.
