BP Is Betting Big On Green Hydrogen

UK supermajor BP sees low-carbon hydrogen as one of its key growth areas and is betting on green hydrogen to advance the energy transition and the decarbonization of energy-intensive industries, company executives told Reuters.

BP is currently in the early planning stage to set up a low-carbon hydrogen hub close to the Whiting, Indiana, refinery, Tomeka McLeod, the supermajor’s new head of hydrogen in the United States, told Reuters.

“BP analysis shows that hydrogen could have around an 8% share in final energy consumption by 2050. When we include other hydrogen demand to produce synthetic fuels and generate power, total hydrogen demand nearly doubles,” Felipe Arbelaez, BP’s Senior Vice President of hydrogen and CCUS, says.

“To put that into context, this would be broadly similar to the share of the global energy mix that natural gas has today,” Arbelaez added.

BP says that hydrogen is one of its five energy transition growth engines.

BP has plans for more hydrogen and CCS in the United States and is also developing a major hub in the UK and studying the potential of hydrogen production in Mauritania.  

In the U.S., BP and Linde plan to advance a major CCS project that will enable low-carbon hydrogen production at Linde’s existing production facilities in the greater Houston area. The development will also support the storage of CO2 captured from other industrial facilities, paving the way for large-scale decarbonization of the Texas Gulf Coast industrial corridor, the supermajor says.

Last month, BP signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Mauritania under which it will deliver a program exploring the potential for large-scale production of green hydrogen in the country.

In June this year, BP agreed to acquire a 40.5% equity stake in and to become operator of the Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH) in Western Australia, which, the firm says, has the potential to be one of the largest renewables and green hydrogen hubs in the world.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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