Three major energy companies – ConocoPhillips, Houston; JERA Americas Inc., a unit of Tokyo’s JERA Inc.; and Uniper SE, Dusseldorf – announced on Sept. 5 that they plan to collaborate to facilitate the development of a US Gulf-based clean ammonia plant with initial production of 2 million mt/y, with expansion potential up to 8 million mt/y.
The project, developed by JERA and ConocoPhillips, aims to produce hydrogen and convert it into clean ammonia to be supplied to JERA and Uniper under long-term sale and purchase agreements, with Europe as the primary initial export market, and Uniper targeting about 1 million mt/y of green ammonia from all sources by the end of the decade.
“JERA is committed to providing cutting edge solutions to the world’s energy issues and is actively working to establish both the ammonia and hydrogen value chains,” said Steven Winn, CEO of JERA Americas. “The combination of a skilled workforce, plentiful natural gas, abundant renewable resources, deep-water ports, and ideal CCS geology make the US Gulf Coast uniquely advantaged to produce the low carbon fuel to enable the Atlantic and Pacific energy markets transition.
“JERA and ConocoPhillips will be a low-cost ammonia supplier to domestic and international markets,” he continued. “We believe this project offers a unique opportunity to support Germany’s decarbonization efforts while advancing ammonia technology development for hydrogen distribution and industrial decarbonization.”
A project engineering study will be completed by year end to develop the first phase of the project, which will assess green and blue hydrogen opportunities. It is expected to reach commercial operation in the late 2020s including a complete certified carbon capture and storage (CCS) program.
JERA and Uniper also announced that they have entered into Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) on procurement and sale of LNG, as well as clean ammonia from the US.
The LNG MOU is aimed at improving the stability of energy supply in both Japan and Germany, through cooperation between the two companies. They are considering joint optimization of their respective LNG portfolios for supply to Japan and Germany and improvement of them for enhancement of the long-term stable supply.
JERA will contribute to providing solutions through the stable procurement of LNG to energy security issues in short- and medium-term and actively work on advancement of energy decarbonization in medium- to long-term.
Based on the MOU of the US clean ammonia procurement and sale, the two are collaborating to facilitate large-scale clean ammonia production projects in the US, such as the one just announced with ConocoPhillips.
Established in 2015, JERA (Japan’s Energy for a New Era) is an equal joint venture of two major Japanese electric companies, TEPCO Fuel & Power Inc. and Chubu Electric Power Co., and produces about 30% of all electricity in Japan. The company has a global reach, and is committed to achieving net zero CO2 emissions from its domestic and overseas businesses by 2050.
Uniper operates in more than 40 countries and plans for its power generation business in Europe to be carbon-neutral by 2035. The company, together with its main shareholder, Fortum, is also Europe’s third-largest producer of zero-carbon energy.