Saudi Arabia's Neom Green Hydrogen to start 8 mt/d hydrogen plant in 2024: CEO

Saudi Arabia's Neom Green Hydrogen Co. (NGHC) expects to start its 8 mt/d green hydrogen project in 2024, preceding its bigger $8.5 billion plan, CEO David Edmondson said March 2.

The smaller plant will only produce hydrogen, as opposed to Neom's bigger project to produce 600 mt/d of hydrogen and convert it into ammonia, Edmondson told S&P Global Commodity Insights on the sidelines of the World Hydrogen MENA conference in Dubai.

Financing for the bigger $8.5 billion project was signed, shareholder ACWA Power said March 1.

"To get the market moving there has to be a domestic market" for hydrogen, Edmondson said. The aim is to use the hydrogen primarily in transportation in Saudi Arabia, he said.

The bigger $8.5 billion project involves producing hydrogen, converting it into ammonia and then exporting the ammonia.

Air Products, another shareholder in Neom, has agreed to take the entire 1.2 million mt/year of ammonia produced. It plans to take the ammonia to Rotterdam, Hamburg and the UK, break it into hydrogen and distribute it around the marketplace primarily for transportation such as trucks, buses and trains, Edmondson said.

The cost of the $8.5 billion project has been increased from an initial estimate of about $5 billion in 2021, partly because of inflation, he told the conference.

NGHC is a joint venture between ACWA Power -- with a 33.3% stake -- Air Products and Neom Co.