Page 11 - EurOil Week 14 2021

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil

Wintershall, German partner

invest in hydrogen tech firm

GERMANY GAS supplier Wintershall Dea has teamed up of Scope 3 emissions resulting from the use of its
with another German company, VNG Innova- products by customers.
Wintershall and tion, to jointly invest in UK firm HiiROC, which “We actively support the energy transition,
others have criticised has developed methane pyrolysis technology including through investments and projects that
the government’s that can produce hydrogen from natural gas. help to drive forward low-cost, large-scale and
preference for green “HiiROC’s technology offers us a lot of low CO2 hydrogen production,” the company’s
hydrogen. potential for decentralised hydrogen produc- CTO, Hugo Dijkgraaf, said.
tion,” Wintershall’s managing director, Andreas
Berger, commented in a statement on March 31. Hydrogen and German steel
“We are delighted to be involved in another In other hydrogen news from Germany, steel-
innovative start-up, HiiROC,” executives at maker ArcelorMittal said in late March it aims
VNG added. “HiiROC has developed a meth- to transform its plants in Bremen and Eisen-
ane pyrolysis process that is much more efficient huettenstadt to run on hydrogen energy at a cost
and effective than conventional processes. The of €1.5bn. ArcelorMittal is one of several major
technology can be a real game-changer for the industrial players in North Germany that have
production costs of hydrogen.” formed a partnership for the Clean Hydrogen
Germany has introduced a national hydro- Coastline project.
gen strategy, heavily prioritising so-called green ArcelorMittal is looking to build a large-scale
hydrogen as the means for decarbonising its plant for the direct reduction of iron ore (DRI)
more energy-intensive industries. Hydrogen and an electric arc furnace (EAF) in Bremen,
is classified as green when it is produced from along with an innovative DRI pilot facility and
water at an electrolyser, with the process pow- EAF in Eisenhuettenstadt.
ered by renewable energy. ArcelorMittal initially plans to use natural
However, Wintershall and others in the gas for the DRI in Bremen, but it will later use
German gas industry have criticised the gov- hydrogen from electrolysis produced as part of
ernment’s preference for green hydrogen, the Clean Hydrogen Coastline initiative. The
pointing to the much lower costs of so-called Eisenhuettenstadt facilities will also run on
blue and turquoise hydrogen, both derived green hydrogen eventually, but will be fed with
from natural gas. Hydrogen is considered blue hydrogen from gas produced at a pyrolysis plant
when it is made using steam methane reform- before then. Both sites will be integrated with the
ing and when CO2 emissions from the process European hydrogen network in the long term.
are captured and stored, making it clean. But ArcelorMittal’s goal is to produce 3.5mn
turquoise hydrogen production involves meth- tonnes per year (tpy) of steel at Bremen and
ane pyrolysis, a more experimental technique Eisenhuettenstadt by 2030 using green hydro-
and instead results in solid carbon, a valuable gen. The conversion will cost €1.0-€1.5bn,
commodity. This raw material can be used to though, and production costs could be 60%
produce various industrial products, including higher than they are today.
plastics and rubbers. “With our concept for the transformation
Wintershall formed a partnership in 2019 of the plants in Bremen and Eisenhuettenstadt,
with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology to we are accelerating the implementation of car-
research hydrogen production from gas, includ- bon-neutral steel production,” ArcelorMittal
ing via methane pyrolysis. The company sees Flachstahl Deutschland CEO Reiner Blaschek
hydrogen as a key way it can deliver on its climate said. “These projects have the potential to have
targets, which including net-zero Scope 1 and 2 a significant impact in reducing CO2 emissions,
upstream emissions by 2030 and the minimising in line with the EU’s climate commitments.” ™

Week 14 08•April•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P11