SK Inc. Materials initiates blue ammonia business with offtake agreement with ExxonMobil
24 February 2023
SK Inc. Materials and ExxonMobil signed a Heads of Agreement (HOA) for SK Inc. Materials to pursue the offtake of blue ammonia from ExxonMobil’s planned low-carbon hydrogen project at its integrated complex in Baytown, Texas. SK seeks to import blue ammonia produced from ExxonMobil to South Korea in support of reducing industrial emissions.
Blue ammonia is produced by combining nitrogen and hydrogen derived from natural gas feedstocks with the CO2 by-product captured and sequestered for permanent storage, ensuring less carbon is emitted through the process. When co-fired with coal in an existing Coal Fired Power Plant (CFPP), blue ammonia emits no additional CO2, and total emissions from power generation is reduced by the amount of blue ammonia co-fired. Co-firing is a combustion technology that uses two or more fuel sources for power generation.
The window for blue ammonia offtake will coincide with South Korea’s Ammonia Co-firing initiative, and SK has plans to introduce blue ammonia solutions to further support the Clean Energy transition. The company says that blue ammonia will replace conventional coal as a main fuel and accelerate energy transition with less carbon footprint and cleaner power.
SK and ExxonMobil will continue the current collaboration framework and work towards additional lower carbon solutions for their mutual benefit.
At the end of January, ExxonMobil announced a contract award to Technip Energies for front-end engineering and design (FEED) of the Baytown project. The project targets 1 billion cubic feet of low-carbon hydrogen per day, while capturing more than 98% of associated CO2 emissions. This would make it the largest low-carbon hydrogen project in the world at planned startup in 2027-2028.
Texas has well over 100 years of natural gas in its shales out west. Plus 1000+ years in hydrates in the Gulf of Mexico. Turning CH4 into NH3 makes sense for industrial use ,power plants and large marine engines. Industrial ammonia transport has a proven safety record with billons of KG per year transported safely. The CO2 from the CCS can and should be used as the injection solvent to drive more natural gas from shales where the amount of CO2 injected is more than the amount produced even if the gas is burnt let alone 98% CCS return rates. The CO2 should be also used to drive methane from hydrates using the CO2+N2 molecular replacement method for the outgassing of in situ hydrates. That method has been proven a number of times in different geological settings to produce methane in gas form from solid state hydrates in situ. Here again the amount of CO2 injected is more than the amount produced even if you burnt the methane outright with 98% CCS it would be carbon negative and then some. Three to one would not be outside realty depending on the N2/CO2 ratio of the injectant. Yes I am a double master's & PhD geologist for those wondering. Fluid injection is one of my specialties.
Posted by: JamesDo88039200 | 25 February 2023 at 08:56 AM