The Emirati state-owned energy giant delivered the cargo, which received its low-carbon certification from TÜV SÜD, for Mitsui & Co. Ltd. Mitsui will use the ammonia for clean power generation in Japan.
“The landmark shipment produced by Fertiglobe was enabled by ADNOC’s $23 billion (AED84 billion) allocation towards decarbonization, low-carbon solutions and climate technologies and underscores its efforts to support its customers to decarbonize their operations, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors”, ADNOC said in a press release. “It builds on previous demonstration cargos delivered by ADNOC to customers in Asia and Germany as the company accelerates development of global low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia value chains”.
ADNOC has raised its investment for decarbonization from an initial $15 billion to “include investments to grow the company’s domestic and international carbon management platforms, supporting the decarbonization journeys of both ADNOC and its customers”, it said in a statement January 22 announcing the $23 billion.
The ammonia shipped to Japan was produced at fertilizer maker Fertiglobe PLC’s facility in Ruwais Industrial City, Abu Dhabi. The associated carbon captured from producing the ammonia will be permanently stored in an ADNOC facility that ADNOC says is the world’s first fully sequestered CO2 injection well in a carbonate saline aquifer.
“Low-carbon ammonia is the most promising at-scale hydrogen carrier and potential clean fuel for a wide range of applications, including transportation, power generation and industrial, including steel, cement, and fertilizer production”, said ADNOC, which aims to capture five percent of the global low-carbon hydrogen market by 2030 as part of the United Arab Emirates’ National Hydrogen Strategy.
The strategy aims to raise the Gulf state’s hydrogen production to 1.4 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) by 2030, consisting of one MMtpa of green hydrogen and 400,000 MMtpa of blue hydrogen. The strategy targets 7.5 MMtpa by 2040 and 15 MMtpa by 2050.
“This year, ADNOC has embarked on the design of a facility in Abu Dhabi that will produce up to 360,000 tonnes of low-carbon hydrogen per year by capturing up to 3 million tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of taking over 650,000 internal combustion vehicles off the road”, ADNOC added. “In addition, ADNOC, together with its partners, TA’ZIZ, Fertiglobe, G.S. Energy Corporation and Mitsui are developing a 1 million tonnes per year low-carbon ammonia facility at the TA’ZIZ Industrial Chemicals Zone”.
Last year ADNOC signed a deal for the establishment of domestic electrolyzer manufacturing to produce green hydrogen. The collaboration with John Cockerill Hydrogen and Strata Manufacturing PJSC will be key to making the country a global leader in hydrogen production, ADNOC said in a news release June 1, 2023. The agreement eyes both local distribution and export.
In the local transport sector, ADNOC has formed a collaboration with Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. (Taqa) to form a mobility joint venture for electric vehicles (EVs). The $200 million E2GO joint venture “comes at an opportune time in the development of the UAE’s EV market, with an expected 70,000 charging points considered to be required in Abu Dhabi by 2030 to meet growing EV demand”, Taqa said in a media release January 19, 2023.
On November 24, 2023, ADNOC said it had put into service a green hydrogen refilling station to test a fleet of zero-emission vehicles. The Masdar City project, called H2GO, is the first of its kind in the Middle East, according to ADNOC.
“The pilot will be used to gather data to understand the long-term viability of hydrogen vehicles in the UAE”, ADNOC said in a statement at the time.
