ITOCHU & Orascom Construction have partnered to develop an ammonia bunkering hub at the Suez Canal in Egypt. In other news, Fertiglobe and AD Ports Group will leverage the latter’s logistics expertise and infrastructure in the UAE to strengthen Fertiglobe’s ability to store and transport ammonia & urea.
In Kazakhstan, the Hyrasia One project & Semurg Invest will develop a transport route for up to 11 million tonnes of renewable ammonia per year to the EU, via Port Kuryk on the Caspian Sea.
Led by Mitsubishi, a new seven-member council will seek to transform Namikata Terminal in southern Japan into an ammonia-focused clean energy hub. The hub will handle over 1 million tonnes of ammonia annually, receiving imports from production hotbeds such as Corpus Christi & Lake Charles on the US Gulf Coast.
OCI will offtake electrolytic hydrogen feedstock from New Fortress Energy’s ZeroParks facility from 2025, allowing for the production of 80,000 tonnes per year of renewable ammonia at its Beaumont plant in Texas. This “over-the-fence” feedstock approach will also be employed in the development of a new multi-million tonne per year, greenfield ammonia plant in Beaumont, with Linde to own & operate an adjacent, CCS-based hydrogen production plant.
Having witnessed the extreme climate events this northern hemisphere summer, it was heartening to see momentum for new renewable projects on display in Sao Paulo, where I spoke at a recent conference. In the Netherlands, an important decision on the Porthos project will - hopefully - create space for infrastructure development.
Germany’s updated national hydrogen strategy forecasts that hydrogen demand in the country will skyrocket by 2045, including new demand for hydrogen and ammonia power generation. An auction process ending in 2026 will spur the construction of 4.4 GW of “sprinter” power plants around the country, generating electricity from pure hydrogen or ammonia. This will support the continued integration of renewable energy into Germany’s national grid.
The state government of Andhra Pradesh launched its new hydrogen and ammonia policy in June, including a production target of up to 2 million tonnes per year of renewable ammonia, plus a raft of incentives to attract project developers to the Indian state. The news comes as India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy sets the standard for “green” hydrogen produced in the country.
Earlier this year, the Japanese shipping giant declared a strategic direction which included a substantial role for low carbon ammonia. In our latest episode of Maritime Insights we explored the scope of this new strategy, MOL’s future fuels roadmap, and the wide range of initiatives in play to construct a full value chain for fuel ammonia (including mega-scale production projects).
