Syngas News Roundup

Syngas News

DENMARK

Maersk orders six more methanol container ships

Maersk has ordered six more 17,000 teu (twenty-foot equivalent unit) container ships capable of running on methanol from Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI). The order brings Maersk’s total order book of dual-fuel vessels capable of running on methanol to 19. Maersk said the new ships will replace existing tonnage in its fleet when they’re delivered in 2025. When all 19 vessels on order join the fleet and replace older tonnage, CO2 savings will be around 2.3 million t/a, according to Maersk. Maersk has committed itself to renewable methanol as a pathway to zero emissions shipping. Its first vessels are due for delivery from Q1 2024. The company has also signed several green methanol fuel supply agreements and joined a partnership to create the first e-methanol plant in Southeast Asia. Maersk is also working with Japanese trading house Mitsui and the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), to jointly conduct a detailed feasibility study of methanol bunkering logistics in Singapore.

“Green methanol is the best scalable green fuel solution for this decade, and we are excited to see several other shipowners choosing this path. It adds further momentum to the rapid scaling of availability needed to bring down the premium on green methanol and accelerate the evolution of climate neutral shipping,” said Palle Laursen, Chief Fleet & Technical Officer at Maersk.

Grant for green methanol facility

Danish renewables developer European Energy has received e53 million from the Danish Green Investment Fund (DGIF) for its upcoming green methanol facility in Kassø, claimed to be the largest e-methanol facility in the world to date. The financing will go to the total capital investments in connection with the expansion of the plant.

The future facility will be supplied with renewable energy from the nearby 300 MW Kassø Solar Park developed and built by European Energy. Earlier this year, European Energy ordered a 50 MW electrolyser plant from Siemens Energy. Siemens will design, supply and commission the electrolysis system consisting of three full arrays of its line of proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis products. The end-users of the methanol will be shipping company Maersk and fuel retailer Circle K among others. The start of commercial methanol production is planned for the second half of 2023.

UNITED KINGDOM

FEED for wind-to-hydrogen demonstrator project

Principle Power has been contracted by ERM to advance the front-end engineering design (FEED) for the 10 MW Dolphyn wind-to-hydrogen demonstrator project off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland. The contract was signed after ERM Dolphyn was awarded £8.62 million of funding from the UK Government, via the Low Carbon Hydrogen Supply 2 Competition.

Dolphyn (Deepwater Offshore Local Production of HYdrogeN) is a concept design to produce large-scale green hydrogen from floating offshore wind. The ERM Dolphyn concept employs a modular design integrating electrolysis and a wind turbine on a moored floating semi-submersible platform based upon proven WindFloat® technology by Principle Power to produce hydrogen from seawater, using wind power as the energy source. ERM and Principle Power have been collaborating on the development of decentralized hydrogen production opportunities since 2019.

JM technology qualified to support Shell green hydrogen production

Shell has qualified Johnson Matthey’s (JM) PURAVOC GREEN™ purification catalysts for use in its global hydrogen production projects. JM’s catalysts will be used to remove trace oxygen to meet oxygen specifications in the production of high purity, zero carbon hydrogen. Removal of oxygen is critical to make the process safer and more efficient. Deoxygenation is an essential step in the production of green hydrogen and requires a flexible and robust catalyst that can operate under a variety of pressures, relatively low temperatures, and intermittent feed flows.

Green hydrogen has a low carbon footprint compared to alternative fuels and can be used as clean energy and in the production of chemical building blocks such as ammonia and methanol. PURAVOC GREEN catalysts have been carefully designed to be highly efficient within a broad operation envelope and maintain performance over many operation cycles making this a reliable, easy to operate and economic solution.

Jane Toogood, Catalyst Technologies Chief Executive at JM, said “We are committed to catalysing the net zero transition for our customers and addressing the biggest environmental challenges that exist. Finding ways to decarbonise and move towards more sustainable processes is of utmost importance and we are pleased to support Shell’s decarbonisation ambition.”

ICIS launches renewable hydrogen assessments

ICIS has launched the first hydrogen price assessments to reflect the market value of renewable electricity. This product will support participants with the intelligence needed to develop a liberalised clean hydrogen market and optimise energy transition resources. Covering market-adopted technologies and locations, the assessments have been produced through consultation with energy market participants and are structured to be compliant with European Union and UK government standards for producing renewable hydrogen (Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin). These hydrogen price assessments reflect the business conditions facing renewable hydrogen projects, providing participants with the confidence to make strategic investment plans, conduct bilateral negotiations and navigate volatility.

“ICIS views the provision of pricing for truly renewable hydrogen as a key enabler of the energy transition,” Simon Ellis, Head of Hydrogen Analytics at ICIS says. “These assessments are an important step in ICIS’s commitment to providing price transparency to the renewable hydrogen market. They are the first true, independent reflection on the cost of producing renewable hydrogen and will give investors the confidence they need to bring capacity online”.

GERMANY

Green methane import project

Fortescue Future Industries has signed an agreement with Tree Energy Solutions (TES) to develop the world’s largest integrated green hydrogen project to help Europe mitigate its current energy and climate crisis and to bring green molecules to Europe.

The first phase of this partnership will jointly develop and invest in the supply of 300,000 t/a of green hydrogen with final locations being currently agreed. TES aims to generate green hydrogen using renewable energy, then combine it with captured CO2 to produce green methane. The methane will then be landed at TES’ new import terminal in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, with first deliveries expected to take place in 2026. The project will produce enough green methane to supply 1.5 million households. The partnership are aiming to eventually develop industrial scale green hydrogen production globally with an initial focus on Australia, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

UNITED STATES

Topsoe to supply technology for renewable gasoline plant

Topsoe will deliver technology to HIF Global’s planned eFuels facility in Texas. The plant will produce carbon-neutral gasoline sufficient to power over 400,000 vehicles annually. The renewable gasoline will be made by combining green hydrogen made from renewable power and recycled carbon dioxide to produce methanol, which will then be converted to downstream gasoline. Topsoe will deliver basic engineering and a license for methanol synthesis as well as its TIGAS™ gasoline synthesis technology. Later in the project, Topsoe’s scope will be extended to supply methanol reactors and catalysts.

Roeland Baan, CEO at Topsoe, said: “We are proud that HIF Global has selected our technology for this truly innovative project which will contribute to decarbonising US transportation. This is our first involvement in a commercial scale Power-to-X facility producing gasoline.”

The plant will be built in Matagorda County in Texas, and will produce 200 million gallons per year of carbon-neutral gasoline that can be used in today’s cars and gas stations with no modifications required. The power requirement for the plant will be 2 GW, 90% being consumed by electrolysers for the green hydrogen production process. Start of construction is expected by 2023 and first production by 2026.

Converting flared gas into clean hydrogen

H2-Industries says that it has developed a solution to convert environmentally harmful flared gases from oil production to clean hydrogen and solid carbon using pyrolysis. The process is delivered in self-contained 20 or 40-foot ISO containers and can be pre-assembled in a semi-serial manner and shipped for installation to the flaring site. The process provides clean hydrogen bound in liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC). LOHC are organic compounds that can absorb and release hydrogen through chemical reactions.

The only by-product of the process is solid carbon black that can be shipped for export to any place in the world using ISO container tanks. Carbon black is mainly used to strengthen rubber in tyres, but it can also act as a pigment, UV stabiliser, conductive or insulating agent in various rubber, plastic, coating applications, and other everyday use, including hoses, conveyor belts, shoes, and printing. This carbon black can be sold on the world market, where the current prices are between $1,500-2,500/t.

ITALY

Grant awarded for waste to hydrogen plan

Maire Tecnimont subsidiary NextChem has been awarded a e194 million grant for the development of a waste-to-hydrogen plant as part of the EU’s IPCEI Hy2Use project. The project will be part of a so-called ‘Hydrogen Valley’ near Rome, an industrial-scale technological hub for the development of a national supply chain for the production, transport, storage and use of hydrogen in Italy.

The grant will be disbursed during the construction phases of the plant. The next steps concern the start of the project activities and all the necessary permits, in order to ensure the plant start-up in the first half of 2027, in compliance with the funding. In the initial phase a production of 1,500 t/a of hydrogen and 55,000 t/a of ethanol is expected. Production of hydrogen will grow according to demand, up to 20,000 t/a, proportionally reducing the volumes of ethanol. It will use NextChem’s proprietary technology, developed by its subsidiary MyRechemical, to convert 200,000 t/a of non-recyclable solid waste as raw material. The European project also includes a contribution of approximately e4 million for additional research and development activities in waste-to-hydrogen technology, leveraging scientific partners such as Enea, Fondazione Bruno Kessler and La Sapienza University of Rome.

Alessandro Bernini, CEO of Maire Tecnimont Group and of NextChem, commented: “We are proud of the goal achieved by Maire Tecnimont Group with NextChem, and of the recognition of the industrial and technological skills of our Country by the European Union to develop a low-carbon and low-cost hydrogen economy. This project, which is unique in the world, represents a milestone in the development of technologies combining circular economy and green chemistry. It enables us to act as pioneers in the decarbonization of hardto-abate industries, with a model that can be replicated in other countries”.

SOUTH AFRICA

Platinum demand for hydrogen production rising rapidly

From next year, platinum group metals (PGM) demand in the hydrogen sector will eclipse 100 000 oz for the first time, according to Metal Focus. PGMs will see year-on-year double-digit growth over the next decade, overtaking more established demand sectors, as the clean energy transition continues.

FINLAND

Methanol plant using cement off-gas

Energy company St1 is planning to build Finland’s first methanol plant, which will be located next to the Finnsementti cement factory on the Ihalainen industrial site in Lappeenranta. The plant will use hard-toabate CO2 emissions from the factory’s limestone raw material, and will have a capacity of approximately 25,000 t/a. If the project advances according to plan, the plant will be operational in 2026. The methanol will be distributed directly through St1’s own network for use in maritime transport. St1 said it has studied the production of synthetic methanol with the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT). LUT will continue to be heavily involved in developing the project.

“The Nordic market for synthetic fuels will grow considerably in the coming years,” said St1’s head of energy transition Riitta Silvennoinen. “The timetable of our pilot project would allow Finland access to the first wave of industrial applications and, consequently, the establishment of the synthetic methanol market and solution scaling. The project will also provide the involved parties with important expertise, which will also be used in advancing other Power-to-X projects.”

The project has been granted funding of e35.4 million from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, conditional on receiving approval from the European Commission.