Green hydro­gen for Covestro

Fortes­cue Future Indus­tries (FFI), a glob­al green energy and green industry com­pany based in Aus­tralia, and Cov­estro, a Ger­man-based glob­al lead­er in high-tech poly­mer mater­i­als, intend to enter into a long-term agree­ment for the sup­ply of green hydro­gen and its deriv­at­ives, includ­ing green ammo­nia.

Accord­ing to the let­ter of intent, FFI and Cov­estro will work on a sup­ply agree­ment under which FFI would sup­ply Cov­estro with the equi­val­ent of up to 100,000 met­ric tons of green hydro­gen (GH2) per year. This agree­ment would allow Cov­estro to replace gray hydro­gen and its deriv­at­ives with GH2, redu­cing its green­house gas emis­sions by up to 900,000 met­ric tons of CO2 per year. Deliv­er­ies are planned for pro­duc­tion sites in Asia, North Amer­ica and Europe and could begin in 2024.

By com­par­is­on, the Ger­man chem­ic­al industry needs just over one mil­lion met­ric tons of hydro­gen annu­ally, accord­ing to the industry asso­ci­ation VCI, a pos­i­tion paper said in 2020. One ton of hydro­gen has an energy con­tent of around 33,000 kilo­watt hours. grThe hydro­gen is then to be pro­duced from water using elec­tro­lys­is. The elec­tri­city required for this is to be gen­er­ated from renew­able energy sources and trans­por­ted by spe­cial ships.

For FFI and Cov­estro, the non-bind­ing let­ter of intent is a first step toward a broad­er stra­tegic part­ner­ship to accel­er­ate the trans­ition to green energy, espe­cially in energy-intens­ive indus­tries.

FFI Chair­man Dr. Andrew For­rest AO said, ​“This is a ground­break­ing col­lab­or­a­tion that under­scores the power green hydro­gen has to accel­er­ate the decar­bon­iz­a­tion of some of the world’s most energy-intens­ive indus­tries. FFI and Cov­estro share the belief that green hydro­gen and green ammo­nia will play a crit­ic­al role in enabling com­pan­ies to achieve their cli­mate goals and pre­vent run­away glob­al warm­ing. We look for­ward to work­ing with Cov­estro to meet its green hydro­gen needs and to work­ing with Ger­many to become the glob­al lead­er in decar­bon­iz­a­tion, green hydro­gen and ammo­nia.“

Dr. Markus Steile­mann, CEO of Cov­estro, said, ​“We are pleased that FFI shares our vis­ion of the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy and is will­ing to take bold steps to sup­port the much-needed mar­ket ramp-up for green hydro­gen. Our col­lab­or­a­tion with FFI under­scores our ambi­tion to lead the way in build­ing the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy and trans­ition­ing to car­bon-neut­ral pro­duc­tion. Green hydro­gen and its deriv­at­ives play an import­ant role for the chem­ic­al industry — both as an altern­at­ive feed­stock and as a source of clean energy. Trans­ition­ing to the use of green hydro­gen and its deriv­at­ives is an essen­tial step in our efforts to provide more sus­tain­able products that in turn reduce the car­bon foot­print of our cus­tom­er indus­tries.“

Julie Shut­tle­worth AM, chief exec­ut­ive officer of FFI, said, ​“Cov­estro is a glob­al lead­er in its industry, with mater­i­als used in almost every aspect of mod­ern life — for example, in the auto­mot­ive, con­struc­tion and elec­tron­ics indus­tries. This col­lab­or­a­tion demon­strates once again that green hydro­gen is a prac­tic­al, easy-to-imple­ment solu­tion for numer­ous indus­tries that are dif­fi­cult to decar­bon­ize.“

Green hydro­gen is pro­duced from renew­able energy. Its pro­duc­tion pro­duces zero emis­sions because the only byproduct is steam. FFI’s goal is to increase green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion to 15 mil­lion tons per year by 2030. Pro­duc­tion is then expec­ted to rise to 50 mil­lion met­ric tons per year in the fol­low­ing dec­ade.

Cov­estro uses hydro­gen and its deriv­at­ives as a start­ing mater­i­al for the pro­duc­tion of high-per­form­ance poly­mers. As part of a broad-based cir­cu­lar eco­nomy strategy, Cov­estro has com­mit­ted to rely entirely on altern­at­ive, renew­able raw mater­i­als as well as green power. The part­ner­ship with FFI is an import­ant mile­stone toward this goal.