Join BLG and the Green Hydrogen Organisation to explore equitable development & climate justice considerations for ammonia project developers, with examples from Canada and global certification development.
A new report from Indian government think-tank NITI Aayog and the Rocky Mountain Institute has outlined the enormous opportunity for India to produce renewable hydrogen & ammonia. Ammonia establishes itself early as a key part of this transition: both via the use of renewable hydrogen for fertiliser production, and as a near-term export vector. The report envisions 160 GW of installed electrolysers by 2030, of which nearly 100 GW could be dedicated to producing ammonia. This would make India one of the world’s largest producers of renewable ammonia for export by the end of the decade.
A Fortescue-led Australian-German business coalition has released a roadmap and ten-point action plan to meet ambitious ammonia import targets for Germany. Policy recommendations on the EU and Australian side of the emerging supply chain include financial support to address the first-mover disadvantage. Guidehouse have laid out recommendations of their own in a new report, which finds maritime shipping of ammonia over long distance is the best import option, and that - ideally - hydrogen derivatives should be shipped into Germany in the form required by end users, saving on reconversion costs.
Meanwhile in Copenhagen, EU Commission Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans has backed the shipping industry to make the transition faster than expected, with ammonia to be the “future 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.
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).
Angola’s state-owned energy company Sonangol has signed an agreement with two German engineering firms to build a 280,000 tonne per year renewable ammonia production plant on the country’s northern coast. Exports to the EU are expected to begin in 2024, with a supply of hydroelectricity already secured.
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.
bp will acquire a 40.5 percent equity stake in and become operator of the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, after reaching an agreement with project partners InterContinental Energy, CWP Global and Macquarie Capital. At full-scale AREH will feature production of up to 9 million tonnes of renewable ammonia per year for export.
Aramco is targeting production of 11 million tonnes per year of low-carbon ammonia by 2030, among a raft of new sustainability goals announced this week. Aramco’s target for renewable energy generating capacity target (12 GW) will be met by its involvement in the new ammonia Supergiant the Saudi Arabia Renewable Energy Hub, but the source of low-carbon ammonia production is not yet clear.
Our latest episode of Maritime Ammonia Insights revealed key details about the Ammonia Bunkering Safety Study currently being undertaken in Singapore. The study is led by the Global Center for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD), with DNV acting as a consulting partner. Lau Wei Jie (GCMD) took us through the high-profile lineup of study partners, and explained how the study aims to develop an extensive technical guideline for ammonia bunkering, similar to TR 56 (which covers LNG bunkering). Dr. Imran Ibrahim (DNV Maritime Advisory), then explained the technical scope of the study, how pilot project sites will be selected, and how the study partners are using previous work from Rotterdam and Oslo to hone their approach. Our audience was eager to understand how this work in Singapore might be applied elsewhere, and keenly awaits the results, which are due for public release in February 2023.