Koreans eye Australian green NH3 supply chain

The companies have formed the Hanguk-Hoju (Korea-Australia) Hydrogen (Han-Ho H2) consortium and signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop a supply chain to export more than 1 million tonnes of green ammonia per annum from Australia to South Korea by 2032.

Korea is already the third largest importer of ammonia in the world. Based on ammonia’s characteristics to act as a hydrogen carrier combined with the Korean Government’s recent commitments to co-fire green ammonia as a carbon-free fuel in the country’s coal and gas-fired generators, the Korea Institute of Energy Research estimates Korea’s total ammonia demand will exceed 21 million tonnes per annum beyond 2030.

Ark Energy will lead the consortium and leverage its experience building the domestic hydrogen economy of North Queensland through its SunHQ H2 Hub. Ark Energy will also leverage its renewable energy portfolio including the Collinsville Green Energy Hub south-west of Bowen, which will have a potential generation capacity of up to 3GW.

Ark Energy CEO, Daniel Kim, said strategic partnerships will be essential to building a new green ammonia supply chain from Australia to Korea, the scale of which does not currently exist. “Together with our parent company, Korea Zinc, we carefully selected Hanwha Impact and SK Gas as potential partners and we are delighted that they have decided to join our consortium. Our partners and our parent company are major players in Korea’s hydrogen economy and have a forecast demand for more than two million tonnes of green ammonia per annum from 2030,” said Kim.

Korea Zinc’s participation in the consortium will be as one of the offtakers and will also contribute to a number of the workstreams in the MoU including ammonia production, storage and associated infrastructure. Korea Zinc Vice Chairman, Yun B. Choi, said the group has invested more than A$3 billion in Australia since it established the Sun Metals zinc refinery in Townsville more than two decades ago.

Hanwha Impact’s participation in the consortium will be as one of the offtakers and will also contribute to a number of workstreams in the MoU including ammonia cracking and converting gas turbines to hydrogen ready turbines.

SK Gas’ participation in the consortium will be as one of the offtakers and will also contribute to a number of workstreams in the MoU including export terminal infrastructure, shipping solution, import terminal infrastructure and end use market development.

The Han-Ho H2 consortium has agreed to target the execution of a Heads of Agreement (HoA) by the end of December 2022.