Powering communities with alternative energy through blue hydrogen

Aramco is an energy and chemicals company with oil and gas production as its primary business. The solutions mentioned here are in the first stages of commercial deployment.

The world needs more energy than ever before. This means we need a sustainable system that can meet its growing demands, while also addressing CO₂ emissions and the overall impact on the environment. A system that can keep communities running, even as the energy transition takes place.

One possible solution is hydrogen, which has potential as a lower-emissions energy carrier that could support significant emissions reductions in hard-to-decarbonize sectors, such as heavy-duty transport, heating, and power production.

With our track record in technology leadership, upstream low-carbon intensity, and low-cost oil and gas production, we see significant potential in large-scale, cost-competitive hydrogen production. However, hydrogen is expensive to transport. So how could we make it commercially viable to deliver this lower-emissions energy around the world?

A circular carbon economy

For over a decade, we’ve explored potential technologies to produce high-purity hydrogen from hydrocarbons, including Thermo-Neutral Reforming (TNR) and a catalyst for converting diesel into hydrogen.

From day one, our ambition has been to create “blue” hydrogen – extracting the valuable gas while also capturing all the CO₂ emissions.

When methane burns it creates hydrogen and CO₂, but what makes blue hydrogen different is that we capture these CO₂ emissions and then inject and sequester them (store them in sinks). This forms part of our vision for a circular carbon economy.

We use two innovative technologies to utilize the captured CO₂. The first involves injecting it into one of our oil reservoirs for Enhanced Oil Recovery, while the other takes the waste CO₂ and converts it into chemicals, such as methanol, for industrial use. Any additional CO₂ can also be safely sequestered deep underground.

Cutting transportation costs

Creating blue hydrogen was only half of the solution. The next challenge we had to overcome was how to affordably store and deliver this revolutionary fuel to where it was needed.

Hydrogen is a very light molecule. It can be liquefied, but that requires keeping it at a temperature of -254°C, which makes it very difficult and expensive to transport – particularly over long distances.

The solution lay in converting the hydrogen into a chemical compound which is already widely traded around the world: ammonia.

Compared to hydrogen, liquefied ammonia is far more convenient, practical, and cost-effective to transport, in terms of both the required temperature and pressure conditions.

Once the blue ammonia reaches its destination, it can be converted back into blue hydrogen, or used directly as a fuel for gas turbines for cleaner power generation.

Blue ammonia: a world-first

In 2020, we successfully completed one of our most ambitious pilot projects to date – a supply network demonstration covering the complete hydrocarbon value chain through SABIC and in partnership with the Institute of Energy Economics Japan (IEEJ).

These ambitions were realized in August 2020, when we successfully shipped 40 tons of high-grade blue ammonia to Japan. The blue ammonia itself was transported to three facilities in Japan, where 20% ammonia was successfully co-fired with coal, and the same ratio with natural gas in existing power stations.

In 2022, we acquired the world’s first certification of lower-carbon blue ammonia and blue hydrogen production from TÜV Rheinland, and a total of over 45,000 tons of hydrogen was delivered overseas to East Asia by our affiliate, SABIC Agri-Nutrients, and the joint-venture Saudi Aramco Shell Refinery Company.

This is one of many initiatives that may help both South Korea and Japan realize their ultimate ambition of becoming low-emissions societies. According to the IEEJ, about 10% of power in Japan could one day be generated by blue ammonia.

Pioneering cleaner fuels

There are still several challenges ahead, such as developing ways to convert a higher percentage of the hydrocarbon energy into hydrogen, and working together with our partners around the world to establish wider infrastructures and supply chains for power generation and hydrogen-powered vehicles.

However, it’s clear that converting natural gas into blue hydrogen could be key to generating affordable, reliable, and sustainable lower-carbon energy for everyone.

We are invested in tomorrow and embrace our role in developing the ideas and practical solutions needed for a stable, realistic, and inclusive energy transition. Each innovative breakthrough is a vital step closer to a brighter future, for all. And we will not stop until we are there.