Published: December 20, 2023
With a new green hydrogen supply agreement in Texas and another plant now operational in Egypt, the Dutch fuel-maker hopes to help kick the clean hydrogen economy.
In September, clean fuels producer OCI Global announced it had struck a green hydrogen supply agreement in the US. Starting in 2025, it will offtake green hydrogen from New Fortress Energy’s ZeroParks. The hydrogen will be delivered to OCI’s facilities in Beaumont, Texas, where it will be converted into green ammonia. OCI expects to produce 80,000 tons of green ammonia in the first year, before doubling its capacity.
The company is also building a large-scale blue ammonia project very nearby – the first of its kind globally to come online. While the project will use blue hydrogen to begin with (i.e., hydrogen produced using fossil fuels, in which the carbon byproduct is captured), it has been designed to transition easily from blue to green over the longer term.
Hassan Badrawi, chief financial officer at OCI Global, tells EMEA Finance, that OCI’s decarbonisation strategy takes a pragmatic, rather than a purist, approach. That means investing in multiple technologies. “These include carbon capture and sequestration when using fossil-fuel feedstocks, increased use of renewable natural gas and bio-based renewable feedstocks, and introducing renewable feedstocks from wind or solar,” he says.
Currently, the manufacturing sector is one of the most carbon-intensive on the planet, accounting for 20% of global carbon emissions and 54% of global energy usage. Hydrogen, especially green hydrogen, is being touted as a key solution to the problem, giving manufacturing sites a clear pathway towards carbon neutrality.