Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) will support the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia to create a low-carbon and renewable ammonia value chain to advance the decarbonisation of Germany's industrial heartland.
To this end, the government of North Rhine-Westphalia, ADNOC and chemical industry services provider Currenta GmbH & Co. signed a memorandum of understanding in Duesseldorf, the UAE-based company and the German federal state said in separate statements.
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The cooperation will focus on the production and transportation of ammonia which will be used as a fuel in energy generation, including industrial-scale testing at the site of chemicals park Currenta in Dormagen, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Initially, ADNOC will supply low-carbon ammonia which will be replaced by renewable ammonia in the long term.
Meanwhile, research institutes in North Rhine-Westphalia will be working on the combustion of ammonia for electricity and steam generation.
Currenta, which operates the chemical site Chempark with several locations in North Rhine-Westphalia, sees big potential to utilise ammonia at its large steam and heat generation plants and considers the development of global supply chains for ammonia a key factor in tapping this potential.
While reaffirming Germany's commitment to expanding green energy generation, the state's energy minister Mona Neubaur said: “[...] it is also clear that we will have to import various green energy sources in large quantities in order to cover our needs and to achieve our climate protection goals. We are now building partnerships and a broad import infrastructure to supply our industry.”
The partnership builds on the green hydrogen cooperation between the UAE and Germany. This involves contracts and research cooperation for the production, storage and transportation of green hydrogen and its derivatives from the Gulf state to Germany between a group of companies from both countries, among them ADNOC. As part of this bilateral cooperation, the first delivery of blue ammonia arrived at the port of Hamburg last October.
