Australia, Singapore to cooperate on hydrogen & ammonia

“Green Economy Agreement”

The governments of Australia and Singapore have signed a new, bilateral trade & energy agreement. The Green Economy Agreement builds on two previous announcements (the Low Emissions Solutions MoU and last year’s Australia-Singapore Partnership on Hydrogen for Maritime Use), enabling the countries to pursue decarbonisation and net-zero goals. Relevant for our readers here at Ammonia Energy, hydrogen & ammonia feature in the official agreement text.

Maritime decarbonisation, R&D and certification

Together, Australia and Singapore will:

• continue to pursue low emissions technologies for “maritime and port operations”.
• seek to establish green shipping corridors between the two countries.
• pursue opportunities in sustainable aviation fuel.
• support R&D (public & private) in both countries.

There is also an agreement to work together on “cross-border electricity trade” via subsea cable, a reference to the under-development Sun Cable project. “Cross-border carbon capture and storage” is also referenced in the new agreement, similar to the move from Yara and the Northern Lights project in September to establish a framework for cross-border CO₂ transport and storage (between the Netherlands and Norway).

The Low-Emissions Solutions MoU (signed in 2020) includes existing work on hydrogen production, CCUS and exchange of “measurement, reporting and verification” data to verify regional carbon markets. Under the new agreement, the two countries will also work towards certification standards for hydrogen & ammonia:

[We will] explore collaboration on, among others:

(xiii) shaping international development and interoperability of standards and certification schemes for clean energy such as hydrogen, including Guarantee of Origin schemes;

Details from the new Green Economy Agreement between Australia and Singapore, Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, Oct 2022

This section references the Australian government’s under-development Guarantee of Origin scheme, which (as we heard at our recent Melbourne conference) is just about to expand its trial phase to ammonia production in Australia.