Industrial gases company Air Products has signed a joint agreement with Omani state-owned energy group OQ and Saudi energy company Acwa Power to move towards the development of a green ammonia complex in Oman’s Salalah Free Zone.

The joint development agreement follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding by the three partners in December.

The multibillion-dollar project would integrate renewable power from solar, wind and storage; production of hydrogen by electrolysis; production of nitrogen by air separation; and production of green ammonia.

"We are delighted and honoured to work with the government of Oman to develop this multibillion-dollar project, which would be similar to the world-scale green hydrogen project we are implementing with our partners in Neom in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” says Air Products CEO Seifi Ghasemi.

“We are delighted and honoured to work with the government of Oman to develop this multibillion-dollar project” Ghasemi, Air Products

The $5bn Neom project, which is due to start up in 2026, will deploy a 2GW electrolyser to produce 1.2mn t/yr of green ammonia, using more than 4GW of renewable power. Air Products is developing the project with Acwa and Saudi state economic zone developer Neom.

The partners in the Oman project say they expect to share equal ownership of the proposed facility.

“This project positions OQ as an energy transition enabler, while playing on our strengths and leveraging our expertise in the downstream chemicals business, particularly in Salalah, where we have extensive operations, and our demonstrated ability to offtake products and competitively deliver them to global customers,” says OQ chair Mulham al-Jarf.

Oman has attracted significant investment in green hydrogen because of its sun, wind and land resources, as well as its favourable location for exports compared with Gulf competitors, bordering the Indian Ocean outside the Strait of Hormuz.

OQ, along with Hong-Kong-based Intercontinental Energy and Kuwait-government backed clean energy investor Enertech, is developing a ten-year project to deploy 25GW of electrolyser capacity to produce 1.8mn t/yr of green hydrogen and up to 10mn t/yr of green ammonia.

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Author: Stuart Penson