The joint venture between Fortescue and OCP will supply hydrogen, ammonia and fertiliser to the Moroccan market and beyond. Meanwhile in Australia, Fortescue’s recently opened electrolyser production facility will produce 2 GW of PEM electrolysers per year.
OCP Group will build a $7 billion ammonia production facility near Tarfaya in Morocco's south. Powered by 3.8 GW of wind and solar energy, 200,000 tonnes per year of renewable ammonia will be produced from 2026, rising to 3 million tonnes per year from 2032.
State-owned enterprise China Energy has announced new ammonia initiatives in three countries, with a reported budget of $20 billion to invest outside China over the next few years. A partnership with Petrobras in Brazil, construction of a new renewable ammonia mega-project in Morocco, and a construction start date for a renewable ammonia plant next to the Suez Canal in Egypt have all been announced in the last few weeks.
In a ceremony before King Mohammed VI of Morocco, OCP Group presented a new, green investment plan for 2023-27. The $13 billion plan will see OCP install 5 GW of renewable energy by 2027, completely powering their fertiliser manufacturing operations. A production target of one million tonnes per year renewable ammonia (also by 2027) will see OCP make serious headway into replacing its ammonia imports into Morocco with locally-made feedstock, improving food & energy security.
In our November episode of Ammonia Project Features we explored two gigawatt-sized ammonia production projects in Northwest Africa: AMUN (Morocco) and AMAN (Mauritania). Nouri Chahid (CWP Global) presented project details, while Lloyd Pinnell (Systemiq) explored the socio-economic impacts of AMAN in Mauritania. If developed in the right way, AMAN could provide potable water, access to cheap renewable electricity, significant local employment & education opportunities, as well as the opportunity to build institutions to best manage new economic windfalls.
Proton Ventures and the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University have signed an agreement to construct a demonstration-sized ammonia production plant at OCP’s existing manufacturing complex in Jorf Lasfar. The 4 tonne per day plant will be powered via an electrical load emulator, simulating the profiles of wind and solar generation at different geographical sites. The facility will act as a “reference unit” and “living laboratory”, allowing scale-up to larger industrial projects, further R&D and training for the future ammonia workforce.
CWP Global has selected US-based engineering organisation Bechtel to support the development of large-scale green hydrogen and ammonia facilities in northwest Africa. CWP Global is leading development of two Supergiants in the region: the AMAN project in Mauritania (renewable ammonia), and the AMUN project in Morocco (renewable fertilisers). In other engineering news, Total Eren has selected UK-based Wood to develop the production complex for its H2 Magallanes project. Wood is already engaged in two significant blue ammonia projects (Al Ruwais, UAE, and the Barents Blue project in Norway).
A key green ammonia project was affected by Morocco's suspension of diplomatic relations with Germany in March 2021, and has been forced to proceed slowly, without any interactions with its German partners. The cooperation agreement between phosphate & fertiliser giant OCP, German research institute Fraunhofer and the Moroccan Institute for Research in Solar Energy and New Energies (IRESEN) aimed to replicate Fraunhofer's pilot green hydrogen plant in Ben Guerir, Morocco. Although Ireland-based Fusion Fuel stepped into the void with a deal to develop a 183,000 tonnes per year green ammonia plant in Rabat, the transition is far from guaranteed. In his new publication, Professor Michaël Tanchum (Middle East Institute) argues renewable ammonia represents a unique opportunity for Morocco a "vicious" cycle into a "virtuous" one, and should be a priority for the country and the international community.
Fusion Fuel will develop the $850 million HEVO Ammonia Morocco project in Rabat. Feasibility studies will be conducted throughout 2022, with the fully commissioned plant to produce 183,000 tonnes of green ammonia annually.
