$4.5 billion blue ammonia project in Louisiana
By on October 20, 2021
Air Products will lead construction of a USD 4.5 billion, 20 million m3-per-day blue hydrogen & ammonia production plant in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. Hydrocarbon feedstock will be used to produce hydrogen, with carbon emissions captured and permanently sequestered (the project will be the single largest instance of permanent sequestration in the world). Air Products already operates a CCUS hydrogen facility in Port Arthur, Texas.
A portion of the blue hydrogen will be compressed and distributed for various end-uses via Air Products’ Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline network, and the remainder will be used for blue ammonia production (technology to be provided by Topsoe, who also collaborated with Air Products on the world-scale Texas City ammonia plant). Operations are expected to commence in 2026.
Approximately 95 percent of the CO2 generated at the facility will be captured, compressed and transported safely by pipeline to multiple inland sequestration sites located along a pipeline corridor extending up to 35 miles to the east of the new production facility. Over five million metric tons per year (MTPY) of CO2 will be permanently sequestered in geologic pore space secured from the State of Louisiana approximately one mile beneath the surface. Air Products has already received approval from the State Mineral and Energy Board, which is part of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, for the permanent sequestration of the CO2.
Air Products’ official press release, 14 October 2021
Canada, Saudi Arabia and now the US
The announcement follows Air Products’ announcement of a multi-billion-dollar, net-zero hydrogen energy complex in Alberta this June. In July 2020 Air Products, ACWA Power, and NEOM announced a $5 billion, 4 GW green ammonia plant in Saudi Arabia, to be operational by 2025.