MUSCAT, DEC 11
Japanese integrated trading and investment business conglomerate Marubeni says its green ammonia project, planned in Salalah Free Zone in Oman’s Dhofar Governorate, is slated for commercial launch in the first quarter of 2028.
Tokyo-headquartered Marubeni is the lead developer in a multinational consortium that seeks to set up ‘SalalaH2’ – a 1 million tonnes per annum capacity green ammonia project that will use a combination of solar and wind-based renewable energy to power the multibillion dollar venture. Consortium partners include OQ Alternative Energy (part of Oman’s integrated energy company OQ Group), German-based global industrial gases giant Linde, and UAE based multidisciplinary engineering business Dutco.
Recently, Hydrom – the state-owned orchestrator of Oman’s green hydrogen industry – designated SalalaH2, among other green hydrogen projects announced before the unveiling of the National Hydrogen Strategy on October 23, 2022, as ‘Legacy Initiatives’. As many as six green hydrogen project proposals have labelled as ‘Legacy Initiatives’. They will be mapped out against the qualification criteria set out by the government for the development of hydrogen ventures in Oman.
According to a high-level executive of Marubeni, the SalalaH2 Project – already two years in the making – is in a strong position to deliver on its project plans in alignment with the government’s broader strategy for the green energy sector.
“It's been almost two years that, as a consortium we are developing the SalalaH2 project. We have spent a considerable amount of time and effort, which has taken us to an advanced project development stage,” said Sule Erkoc (pictured), Senior Lead Project Developer – Marubeni.
“Therefore, we see the SalalaH2 Project Consortium very well-positioned to provide a compelling proposal to Hydrom in the third quarter of 2023. Further, as a consortium, we think that we have very strong capability across the full value chain from production of the green electrons and green molecules, to shipping the product to the end-user customers. And we intend to self-perform in all aspects of the project.”
Speaking during the Green Hydrogen Summit Oman (GHSO) 2022 Conference & Exhibition, which concluded in Muscat last week, Erkoc said the upstream renewable energy component of SalalaH2will come with around 4 gigawatts (GW) of total installed capacity, comprising around 2.1 GW of wind capacity and 1.7 GW of solar – both located in Thamrait in Dhofar Governorate
The green electricity will be transferred via a high-voltage transmission line to a 2 GW capacity electrolyzer complex to be located in Salalah Free Zone adjacent to SalalaH2’s green ammonia plants.
Giving a timeline for the delivery of the project, she added: “We will be spending our next month further developing our project to prepare our proposal for Hydrom. Following that, in mid-2024, we intend to take a Final Investment Decision (FID), followed with financial close in Q1 2025. We are planning on three years of construction, which will hopefully take us to the Commercial Operation Date (CoD) of a 1 million-tonnes per annum ammonia production facility by the first quarter of 2028.”
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