Fertiglobe goes green with Red Sea zero-carbon ammonia project

LONDON (ICIS)–Plans were announced on Thursday for the joint development of a 50-100MW electrolyzer facility in Egypt to produce green hydrogen as feedstock for green ammonia manufacturing.

Dutch fertilizer major OCI said Fertiglobe – its partnership with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) – has teamed up with Norwegian renewable power producer Scatec and the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE).

Scatec will build, operate and majority own the facility, while existing ammonia producer EBIC will use the green hydrogen as a supplementary feedstock for the production of up to 90,000 tonnes/year of green ammonia under a long-term offtake agreement.

A final investment decision (FID) on the zero-carbon project is expected in 2022, and start-up is targeted for 2024, OCI said.

EBIC produces nearly 750,000 tonnes/year of ammonia for export, with the OCI unit utilising direct pipeline connections to Sokhna port, one of the region’s largest export jetties and close to the Suez Canal.

Ahmed El-Hoshy, CEO of OCI and Fertiglobe, said: “We are pleased to partner with Scatec, a leader in the global renewables market and Egypt’s largest renewable power developer, to deploy cutting-edge technology at world scale to start ramping up our green ammonia production profile.

“This project adds to our existing and rapidly developing low-carbon portfolio of ammonia across our global platform, and Fertiglobe in particular is increasingly becoming the ideal springboard to capture the huge growth opportunities offered by the hydrogen economy.”

The parties will seek support from the Egyptian government for required regulatory approvals and sourcing of competitive renewable power from the grid, with the intention to build out new solar and wind capacity to power Egypt’s green hydrogen ambitions.

Ayman Soliman, CEO of TSFE, said: “TSFE is a manifestation of Egypt’s 2030 Vision with the principles of sustainable development and impact investment instilled in its mandate, and this project is a cornerstone investment in our green sustainable portfolio build-up with many more to come.”

Earlier this year, Fertiglobe partnered with ADNOC to sell blue ammonia from the United Arab Emirates to Japan and announced a 70,000 tonne scale-up of blue ammonia production capacity through a low-cost debottlenecking programme in Abu Dhabi.

The company will also join ADNOC and ADQ as partner in a new world scale 1m tonne/year blue ammonia project at TA’ZIZ in Ruwais in Abu Dhabi, subject to regulatory approvals.