Bakken Energy, Mitsubishi Power Americas and MHA Nation have signed a new MoU for the redevelopment of the Great Plains Synfuel Plant: an existing ammonia production facility (>400,000 tonnes per year) near Beulah, North Dakota. The $2 billion facility will be renamed the Great Plains Hydrogen Hub, and is expected to be operational by 2027, producing 348,000 tonnes per year of hydrogen via ATR and CCS.
A trio of South Korean organisations - Samsung Engineering, POSCO and Lotte Chemical - will partner with the Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) to develop a new green hydrogen & ammonia project in Bintulu, eastern Malaysia. The combination of plentiful hydropower, existing gas infrastructure and existing petrochemical production facilities in Bintulu means the H2biscus partners are focusing on a suite of export products - hydrogen, ammonia & methanol - with both green and blue characteristics.
A new, million-tonne per-year blue ammonia project is under development in the Northern Territory, Australia, with gas from the Pedirka Basin (located near Alice Springs) to be used to produce hydrogen, and carbon emissions sequestered in a nearby geological formation. An MoU between project developer Hexagon Energy Materials and FRV Australia will see FRV-owned renewable power (existing or new build) provide electricity to Hexagon's to-be-built hydrogen and ammonia production facilities.
In Wyoming, North Shore Energy and Starwood Energy Group have received over $4 million in funding from the Wyoming Energy Authority for "Project Phoenix" - a state-of-the-art ammonia complex with on-site carbon capture and sequestration capabilities to be built near Evanston.
Masdar and ENGIE will lead development of a 200 MW green hydrogen facility to supply Fertiglobe's existing ammonia production plants in al-Ruwais, UAE. The announcement is the first "concrete action" taken by the pair following a $5 billion strategic alliance signed in December, with the goal of developing at least 2 GW electrolysis capacity in the UAE by 2030.
Enova - Norway's government-owned, clean energy investment enterprise - announced funding to support some key ammonia energy projects currently in progress:
1. New Funding guarantees a final investment decision for the pilot phase of electrifying Yara's Herøya (Porsgrunn) ammonia plant.
2. Horisont Energi's Barents Blue project will now participate in the Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) Hydrogen scheme.
3. And Viridis Bulk Carriers will receive a to-be-determined amount from to develop the first ammonia-powered cargo short sea bulk vessel in its future north European fleet.
Uniper and Novatek have signed a long-term supply agreement to transport up to 1.2 million tonnes of blue ammonia annually from Novatek's to-be-built blue ammonia plant in Siberia to Uniper's planned "climate-friendly" hydrogen hub in Wilhelmshaven.
Navigator will provide carbon transport and storage services to decarbonise OCI's Iowa Fertilizer Company plant via the newly-announced Heartland Greenway CCS system. In the first phase, 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide will be captured from process gas at the plant beginning in 2024. This equates to production of 300,000 tonnes of blue ammonia.
CF Industries' Board has approved $285 million of investment into blue ammonia production at two of its US plants - Donaldsonville and Yazoo City. By 2024 the new works will enable annual production of 1.25 million tonnes blue ammonia. Once finished, the units could sequester up to 2.5 million tons of CO2 per year (2 million tons at Donaldsonville and 500,000 tons at Yazoo City).
A new MoU between Linde and KazMunyGas (KMG, Kazakhstan's national oil & gas organisation) will see the two explore the feasibility of large-scale clean hydrogen & ammonia projects in Kazakhstan. The initial focus will be hydrogen & ammonia production from either natural gas with carbon sequestration, or water electrolysis. Development and construction of projects will follow a successful feasibility phase.
