The Middle East’s petrostates are banking on hydrogen being the next big energy source and are investing accordingly. Hydrogen is clean burning with no CO₂ emissions, and the race is on to develop low-carbon production sources. Amid a rainbow of offerings, ‘blue hydrogen’ and ‘green hydrogen’ are the two key low carbon varieties – the former producing hydrogen from hydrocarbons and capturing CO₂ emissions, the latter using renewables to create hydrogen.
Whereas the likes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are investing in developing both blue and green hydrogen facilities, Oman appears to be focussing primarily on the latter. Within the GCC, Saudi Arabia has the most advanced green hydrogen plans through its planned $5bn facilities at Neom (Acwa Power 33.3%, Air Products 33.3%, Neom Company 33.3%) in the north of the kingdom. It plans to use 4GW of renewable energy to produce 237,000 t/y of hydrogen and then turn this into 1.2mn t/y of ammonia for onwards transport by 2026 (MEES, 24 December 2021). (CONTINUED - 1836 WORDS)
