Saudi Aramco Investing in Hydrogen as Part of Focus on Renewables

Saudi Arabia's Aramco is drawing charts for investing in hydrogen production as part of its focus on renewables. The oil giant is set to produce 2 million tons of low-carbon hydrogen by 2030, according to Ashraf Al Ghazzawi, EVP Strategy and Corporate Development, at Aramco. Al Ghazzawi was speaking at the annual ADIPEC summit in Abu Dhabi, the biggest energy conference in the Middle East. "We are following the developments in hydrogen very closely and have plans to produce 2 million tons by 2030; that's roughly around 100 million tons of blue ammonia. Aramco is ahead of our partners and peers as we have twice tested the whole supply chain of hydrogen production," he said.

In 2020, Aramco collaborated with SABIC to dispatch the world’s first shipment of low-carbon ammonia to Japan in a pilot project. In 2022, Aramco and SABIC received the world’s first independent accreditation for low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia products. By the end of 2022, the two companies had delivered the world’s first accredited low-carbon ammonia shipment to South Korea. However, the fossil fuel exporter is also making investments in LNG. Aramco picked up a minority holding in MidOcean Energy for US$500 million. According to a statement from Aramco, MidOcean, which is managed by EIG Global Energy Partners, is in the process of acquiring interests in four Australian LNG projects.