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AsiaElec COMMENTARY AsiaElec
transportation, they face practical limitations
in heavier-fuel vehicles, including planes, ships Arabian Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) and
and trucks. IEEJ.
The company views ammonia as “an optimal Aramco said that during the process of gen-
fuel for […] areas that have all proven difficult erating the ammonia, it had captured 50 tonnes
to decarbonise”, saying it aims to reduce roughly of carbon dioxide (CO2). Thirty tonnes will be
5bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent of emissions by used in methanol production at SABIC’s Ibn-
2040 “while accelerating the global journey Sina facility, with the remainder to be used in
towards net zero by 2050”. enhanced oil recovery (EOR) at Aramco’s ‘Uth-
“The energy storage system we’ve built basi- maniyah field.
cally converts ammonia to electrons very effi- In a presentation, Aramco said that the pro-
ciently in a small footprint, so you can use it in duction of blue ammonia had spanned the entire
different vehicles,” Woo said. value chain, supporting the company’s recent
For Aramco, the modest investment marks a claims of investing in the circular economy.
step down the hydrogen value chain. Last year, Natural gas was taken from ‘Uthmaniyah and
Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz converted to hydrogen at a dedicated facility in
bin Salman said that the giant Jafurah unconven- Jubail, with the CO2 captured at a nearby facility
tional gas basin would be leveraged to produce and returned to ‘Uthmaniyah and sent to Jubail
blue hydrogen as the country seeks to extend its Methanol Plant. Nitrogen was added to the
leadership of the oil sector into hydrogen. hydrogen at the Jubail Ammonia Plant to cre-
“We are the biggest adventurers when it comes ate blue ammonia, which was then dispatched
to blue hydrogen … We’re putting our money by sea to Japan, where it will be separated and
where our mouth is on hydrogen. We have a ter- used to power the 50-kW Koriyama micro gas
rific gas base in Jafurah [and] we will use it to turbine, the 2-MW Yokohama gas turbine and a
generate blue hydrogen,” he said. co-firing boiler in Aioi.
This followed its entry into the sector along- However, Aramco’s chief technology officer,
side Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics (IEEJ) Ahmad al-Khowaiter, said in 2021 that while
in September 2020, when the company shipped the company would have “a large share” of the
its first cargo of blue ammonia to Japan to be hydrogen market, he cautioned: “The scale up
used in zero-carbon power generation. isn’t going to happen before 2030. We’re not
The 40-tonne shipment was generated by Ara- going to see large volumes of blue ammonia
mco and was made in collaboration with Saudi before then.”
Week 26 29•June•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P7
