Air Products, OQ, and ACWA Power will jointly develop a world-scale, multi-billion dollar renewable ammonia production facility in Salalah, Oman. The new deal follows an MoU signed in December 2021. A combination of solar, wind and storage capacity will power the facility, with electrolytic hydrogen to feed the production of ammonia via the Haber Bosch process. As for the size of the new facility, Air Products President & CEO Seifi Ghasemi commented that the new project would be “similar to the world-scale green hydrogen project we are implementing with our partners in NEOM”.
Salalah
OQ is already transitioning their existing ammonia production facility in Salalah to run on wind and solar power, with a 400 MW electrolyser plant to be built (this separate project is being jointly conducted with Linde, Marubeni and Dutco). The new project will also look to leverage OQ’s existing infrastructure, as well as their ability to export significant product volumes from Salalah.
This project positions OQ as an energy transition enabler, while playing on our strengths and leveraging our expertise in the downstream chemicals business, particularly in Salalah where we have extensive operations, and our demonstrated ability to off-take products and competitively deliver them to global customers. The project fits well with the Sultanates’ renewable energy strategy and fosters investments in alternative energy resources, both of which contribute to Oman Vision 2040.
OQ Chairman Mulham Al Jarf in Air Products’ official press release, 26 May 2022
Duqm
Further north up the Oman coast, three other significant ammonia projects are already in progress:
- OQ and DEME Concessions’ HYPORT® project, with Uniper already exploring offtake of the renewable ammonia product.
- ACME and Scatec’s million-tonne-per-year renewable ammonia project, which also received official “green certification” this year from TÜV Rheinland.
- And OQ, InterContinental Energy and Enertech’s green Supergiant: Green Energy Oman (GEO). 25 GW of combined wind and solar capacity will feed renewable ammonia production, with a proposed export facility on the coast.
