Mitsui & Co., Mitsui Chemicals, IHI Corporation and the Kansai Electric Power Company will explore the establishment of a hydrogen & ammonia supply chain based in Osaka. Ammonia fuel will be used to decarbonise electricity generation, and cracked to provide a feedstock for other industrial processes like steel-making. In South Korea, a similar partnership is evolving between LOTTE and Air Liquide. You can learn more about the emerging nexus between ammonia cracking and steel-making at our upcoming annual conference in Atlanta, USA.

Three new ammonia-powered, bulk carrier designs have recently been awarded Approval in Principle. In China, SDTR Marine & SDARI’s Kamsarmax dual-fuel design received AiP from the China Classification Society. In Japan, another Kamsarmax-sized vessel developed by Sumitomo and Oshima Shipping was approved, and ClassNK has signed off on a Capemax vessel designed by MOL and Mitsui & Co., which includes an ammonia-powered main engine and hard sails to improve energy efficiency.

As part of the HyEx project, Mitsui & Co., Toyo Engineering and Enaex will develop a solar-powered, 18,000 tonnes-per-year renewable ammonia plant in Tocopilla, northern Chile. Just outside of Tocopilla, Sumitomo and Chilean transmission utility Colbún have teamed up to explore renewable ammonia production & export. The pair will also assess million-tonne-per-year production in Chile’s south. Also in South America, Proton Ventures have contracted Fitchner to assess the feasibility of planned renewable production projects.

ENGIE has successfully reached a final investment decision on Project Yuri. The collaboration with Yara will see renewable hydrogen feedstock produced next door to Yara’s existing ammonia & fertiliser production facility in Karratha, Western Australia, with construction to commence this year, and production of renewable hydrogen to begin in 2024.

In further developments, Yuri has new stakeholders, with Mitsui & Co. securing a 28% interest stake in Yuri, and Technip Energy being selected to lead EPCC works. And in certification news, the Smart Energy Council also announced it has granted pre-certification for renewable hydrogen & ammonia production from Project Yuri, under the Zero Carbon Certification Scheme.

This week we explore three announcements on the US Gulf Coast:

• North American pipeline giant Enbridge will join forces with Humble Midstream to develop a low-carbon ammonia export project near Corpus Christi, Texas. The project will be built within the Enbridge Ingleside Energy Center, currently the largest crude oil storage and export terminal in the US.
• Talos Energy, Chevron and Carbonvert will jointly develop the Bayou Bend CCS project in eastern Texas, where 275 million tonnes of carbon emissions could potentially be sequestered beneath the sea bed.
• And more details have emerged about CF Industries’ joint CCS ammonia project with Mitsui. The greenfield facility is expected to cost around $2 billion, and will produce between 1 - 1.4 million tonnes of ammonia per year.

Mitsui & Co. and CF Industries will jointly develop a greenfield facility that will produce CCS ammonia on the US Gulf Coast. The partners are targeting a reduction of at least 60% emissions compared to conventional ammonia production, with ammonia production to begin by 2027 at the earliest.

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.

South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) announced ammonia coal co-combustion will be operational in over half the country's coal-fired power generating units by 2030. The government has already set a target of 13.8 - 21.5% of national power generation coming from hydrogen & ammonia-fed gas turbines by 2050 (the 2050 Carbon Neutrality Roadmap was approved in October). To help drive the required commercialisation & technology deployment, MOTIE, KEPCO and other Korean power utilities will collaborate in a ‘Hydrogen and Ammonia Power Generation Demonstration Promotion Group’. In supply news, South Korean oil & gas major GS Energy announced this week is will join ADNOC and Japan-based Mitsui & Co. to develop the million tonne per year blue ammonia project in Al Ruwais, UAE.

Mitsui & Co., Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) and Wesfarmers will explore the feasibility of a blue ammonia production plant in Western Australia (WA). Emissions from hydrogen production will be stored in depleted gas fields in the Perth Basin (owned by Mitsui).

This week: Mitsui & Co., CF Industries team up to explore blue ammonia opportunities (and to link up US and Japan), CCS hydrogen in Pennsylvania, and the Infrastructure Bill.