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Firms prepare Oman hydrogen land auction bids

25 January 2024

Qualified bidders are preparing to submit their proposals for the second round of Oman’s land auction for integrated green hydrogen projects.

Hydrogen Oman (Hydrom), a subsidiary of Energy Development Oman, expects to receive bids on 28 January.

MEED understands a consortium comprising UK-headquartered Yamna, France’s EDF and Japan’s Electric Power Development Company (J-Power), formerly Denpatsu, plans to submit a bid for the land being auctioned. 

It is unclear which other companies have been qualified to bid for the three blocks for auction, which cover an area of 960 square kilometres in the Dhofar region.

Hydrom expects to award the contracts to successful bidders by the second half of 2024, Abdulaziz al-Shidhani, Hydrom’s managing director, said in December.

“Hydrom offered three blocks for auction in the Dhofar region. When awarded, these will take the total green hydrogen production commitments close to our target of 1 million tonnes a year (t/y) of green hydrogen by 2030,” he said.

In June last year, Hydom awarded the first green hydrogen land blocks in Duqm and Thumrait that were auctioned under the first round of the scheme.

The first of two blocks (Z1-01) in the public auction process launched last year was awarded to the Amnah consortium, which comprises Denmark’s Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), Blue Power Partners (BPP) and Al-Khadra, part of Oman’s Hind Bahwan Group.

The consortium will develop around 200,000 t/y of green hydrogen from 4.5GW of installed renewable energy capacity for planned green steel plants located in the Port of Duqm, within the Special Economic Zone at Duqm (Sezad).

Hydrom awarded the second package of the first land auction to a consortium led by South Korea’s Posco and France’s Engie. The South Korean/French-led team plans to develop a green hydrogen plant with an annual capacity of 220,000 tonnes in Duqm, some 450 kilometres southwest of the Omani capital.

The six-company consortium will construct a 5,000MW power plant using solar power and other renewable energy sources, and an ammonia production factory on a 340 square-kilometre site.

On 12 December, Hydrom awarded another hydrogen block to a consortium known as SalalaH2, which comprises state-backed OQ Alternative Energy, Japan’s Marubeni Corporation, UAE-based Dutco Overseas and South Korea’s Samsung C&T.

The project is set to produce over 4GW of renewable energy for the production of green hydrogen, which will be processed further into green ammonia for local use and export to international green ammonia markets.

The project is estimated to produce a target of over 1 million t/y of green ammonia, with an expected production of over 175,000 tonnes of green hydrogen.

Legacy projects

In June, Hydrom also signed agreements with several other integrated green hydrogen proponents in the country.

It signed an agreement with BP Oman to develop green hydrogen for ammonia production and export. The anticipated annual output for this project is 150,000 t/y of green hydrogen from 3.5GW of installed renewables capacity in Block Z1-03.

Another agreement was signed with the Green Energy Oman (GEO) consortium to develop green hydrogen and its derivatives. The consortium includes Oman’s integrated energy company OQ, Oman Shell, Kuwait’s energy investor EnerTech, InterContinental Energy and Golden Wellspring Wealth for Trading. This project is expected to produce up to 150,000 t/y of green hydrogen from 4GW of installed renewables capacity in Block Z1-04.

The signing of project agreements with both BP Oman and GEO follows the earlier signing of commercial term sheets, which regularised the legacy initiative projects under a regulatory framework.

Other legacy projects are being planned in Oman, including one being developed by Belgium’s Deme Group and another by India’s Acme Group.

MEED’s January 2024 special report on Oman includes: 

> COMMENT: Muscat needs to stimulate growth
> GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY: Muscat performs tricky budget balancing act
> BANKING: Oman banks look to projects for growth
> OIL & GAS: Oman diversifies hydrocarbons value chain
> POWER & WATER: Oman expands grid connectivity
> HYDROGEN: Oman seeks early hydrogen success
> CONSTRUCTION: Oman construction is back on track

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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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