Australian firms seek to establish ammonia bunkering in Pilbara

Hexagon Energy Materials has signed an MoU with Oceania Marine Energy to develop a blue ammonia bunkering facility in Pilbara, Western Australia.

PHOTO: Cargo ships loading Pilbara iron ore. Getty Images

They plan to set up a blue ammonia bunkering facility in Pilbara's Dampier port. The region is rich in iron ore and exports over 800 million mt/year of iron ore to countries in Asia. Bulk carriers transporting this iron ore are currently powered by conventional marine fuels.

Under the MoU, the duo will collaborate to demonstrate the feasibility of supplying blue ammonia as bunker fuel for bulk carriers through ship-to-ship transfer. They will also work together to estimate the potential demand for ammonia bunkering in the region.

The blue ammonia for bunkering will be sourced from Hexagon's proposed Western Australian Blue Ammonia facility (WAH2) in Maitland Strategic Industrial Area (SIA), Pilbara. The facility aims to produce blue ammonia to cater to future domestic demand from power plants as well as for exports and bunkering.

The project is still in the initial design phase, and Hexagon has not confirmed the production capacity of the facility or the construction timeline.

Blue ammonia is typically blue hydrogen combined with nitrogen captured from the air and put through the so-called Haber-Bosch process. Hydrogen is actually fossil, as it is produced from the steam methane reforming of natural gas. But the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted during this production process is captured, which can render it low- or zero-carbon.

Last year, a Lloyd’s Register study found Australia's Pilbara region suitable for ammonia bunkering. The study, commissioned by Yara Clean Ammonia (YCA) and the Pilbara Ports Authority, focused on the potential of bunkering bulk carriers with ammonia in the Pilbara region.

By Manjula Nair

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