Qatar is getting in on the blue ammonia game with a USD 1 bn facility

Good morning, MENA — wow, did you keep us busy yesterday. We’re kicking off September with a bang, kicking yesterday’s one-day climate news drought to the curb as the new month gets underway with a deluge of announcements from different corners of the industry.

This is our final issue of Enterprise Climate for the week. We published Monday-Thursday, so we’ll see you back in your inboxes next week.

THE BIG CLIMATE STORY- Qatar goes big on blue ammonia: QatarEnergy has inked agreements to build USD 1 bn blue ammonia plant. It will have an annual production capacity of 1.2 mn tons when it’s completed in 2026. We have more on this in this morning’s news well, below.

HAPPENING TODAY-

The World Conference on Climate Change and Sustainability kicks off today in Frankfurt, Germany. The gathering aoms to bring together “a range of key actors from institutions, governments, cities and communities, the private sector, and civil society, to make the world more climate-resilient.” You can also attend the event online by registering here.

Africa Climate Week continues in Gabon today: More than 1.2k African officials and climate experts are gathering this week in Libreville, Gabon, for the UN- and World Bank-led event to discuss climate issues ahead of COP27. Gabonese president, Ali Bongo Adimba, yesterday urged African governments to develop climate strategies and work on their negotiating positions ahead of the summit in November, the Associated Press reported.

Talk, but little action: Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry had some choice words for developed nations, many of which he said were “backtracking” on their financial commitments and holding Africa back from adapting to climate change. “The international community is lagging behind in mitigation, adaptation and finance. Several pledges on mitigation and adaptation finance celebrated in Glasgow are yet to be delivered,” he said. “The delayed delivery of climate finance continues to affect Africa’s efforts to contribute to the global effort against climate change.”

THE BIG CLIMATE STORY OUTSIDE THE REGION- G20 fails to set its climate priorities (surprise, surprise): The G20 environment officials came up short and failed to agree on a communique on climate targets during their climate talks in Bali yesterday.

Some are even walking back on key elements of the Paris Climate Agreement. China, specifically, seems to be trying to walk back on the 1.5 C commitment.

It’s not a G20 without non-climate related political disputes: Delegates from Italy reportedly insisted that the Russia-Ukraine war (specifically Russia) be classified as a climate hazard. Reuters and the AP have the story

THE COUNTDOWN TO COP-

So far, about 35k people registered to attend COP27 in November, NGO EC4SDF told Egyptian state-owned newspaper Ahram Online. This puts COP27 “on track to possibly become one of the most attended UN climate conferences, breaking the previous record of 42k participants at COP21 in France in 2015,” the NGO’s head of board of trustees told Ahram Online. EC4SDF was appointed an observer NGO for COP27 earlier in August. You can also register to attend here.

Brazilian presidential candidate wants saving tropical rainforests to be a COP27 priority — and for wealthy countries to foot more of the bill: Former Brazilian President — and current presidential hopeful — Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva aims to form an alliance to help developing countries secure funding and support to preserve their tropical rainforests in the run-up to COP27, Reuters reports. The idea is for Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to collectively put pressure on rich countries to help fund the cost of keeping the forests standing, a top aide told the news outlet. “The proposal is to set up a strategic alliance to address the issue of funding at the COP in Egypt,” he said. Lula’s policy team is said to be particularly focused on building a global carbon market and financing rainforest conservation, the aide added.

THE DANGER ZONE-

Here’s one of many reasons Lula is making the Amazon a top priority: The Amazon rainforest has just suffered its worst spate of wildfires in 12 years, according to government figures picked up by Reuters. Satellites picked up some 1.5k fire alerts from 1-30 August, according to the country’s space research agency, making it the worst August since 2010.

You probably haven’t heard about it though: The fires last month were even worse than the blazes in August 2019 which received wall-to-wall coverage from the global media. This time around, though, the disaster has attracted only a fraction of the attention, despite the higher number of fires.

Cleanup companies need to clean up their act in Nigeria’s Ogoniland, says UN: The USD 1 bn Ogoniland oil cleanup in Nigeria — hailed by the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 2017 as “likely to be the world’s most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean up exercise ever undertaken” — is actually making chemical contamination worse in one the world’s most polluted areas, investigative reporting by Bloomberg reveals. Cleanup efforts which began in 2019 have suffered from “rampant mismanagement, incompetence, waste and lack of transparency,” Bloomberg claims, citing UNEP documents it has obtained.

SIGN OF THE TIMES- The water of the Arabian Gulf is so hot, it threw Iran’s nuclear power production a curveball: Water temperature of the Persian Gulf rose to 34-35°C, causing Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant to halt for a few weeks this summer, Atomic Energy Organization chief Mohammad Eslami told Iranian Iranian Students’ News Agency. The water is used to cool nuclear reactors down and usually does not exceed 25°C. Bloomberg also has the story here.

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

Egypt’s Ain Shams University will host the Regional Action on Climate Change (RACC) conference from 3-5 September at its campus in Cairo. The conference will focus on the impact of climate change on the agro-environmental field, with speakers including local ministers, UN and IMF representatives.

The Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES) will be hosting a Carbon Market Webinar on 6 September via Zoom. Discussions will revolve around how Egypt and African countries can create an integrated, profitable carbon market. You can register for the event here.

The 2022 Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference will take place in Riyadh on 7 September. Besides discussing Saudi Arabia’s economy in the context of the global macro-outlook, it will also host a workshop on ESG and climate change.

A MENA youth climate innovation lab and Academy is set to run starting Friday, 16 September. Backed by Seedstars, the United Nations Climate Technology Centre and Network, and Denmark’s foreign ministry, the three-day event will spotlight climate tech developed by young folks from the MENA region. The deadline for applications is on 4 September; you can apply here.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

QatarEnergy’s renewables arm signed agreements yesterday to build the world’s largest blue ammonia plant, with a USD 1 bn price tag, the energy company announced in a statement.

A record-breaking plant: The Ammonia-7 plant will produce up to 1.2 mn tons of blue ammonia every year — making it the largest plant of its kind in the world, the state-owned company said. ThyssenKrupp and Consolidated Contractors Company are on board to build the facility, which is expected to be up and running by 1Q 2026, according to the statement. It will be located in Mesaieed Industrial City (MIC), some 40 km south of Doha, and will be operated by Qatar Fertiliser.

Ammonia-7 will be partly powered by some 35 MW of renewable energy supplied by QatarEnergy Renewable Solutions’ MIC solar PV power plant, which is currently under construction, the statement says.

It’ll make use of carbon capture: QatarEnergy Renewable Solutions will develop and manage carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities to capture some 1.5 mn tons per year of CO2 from Ammonia-7 once it becomes operational, the statement adds. This is part of Qatar’s broader aim to develop its CCS facilities to capture up to 11 mn tons a year of CO2 by 2035, Bloomberg notes.

Is there an offtake agreement in place? QatarEnergy Renewable Solutions will be the sole off-taker and marketer of all blue ammonia produced by Ammonia-7, the statement notes, and production seems destined for export markets: The Ammonia-7 project offers a chance for Qatar “to supply differentiated, low-carbon products and fuels to the world,” QatarEnergy CEO Saad Sherida Al Kaabi was quoted as saying in the statement.

What’s blue ammonia again? A quick recap: ‘Blue’ ammonia serves as feedstock for hydrogen. Although not as environmentally-friendly as ‘green’ ammonia, it’s still seen as a source of clean energy. Unlike conventional production, blue ammonia involves the use of carbon capture, which stores the CO2 underground and prevents its release into the atmosphere. Ammonia has a range of other uses, including to power ships and produce fertilizer.

MENA’s overall ammonia and hydrogen development prospects are strong: MENA has considerable potential in both green and blue ammonia and hydrogen development, being “well-positioned” to supply around 10%-20% of the global hydrogen market by 2050, according to the Arab Petroleum Investment Corporation (Apicorp)’s most recent MENA Energy Investment Outlook (pdf). The region had registered over USD 26 bn in hydrogen projects as of July, though most were still in the planning phase.

But blue probably has the edge on green in MENA at the moment, according to Apicorp. Blue ammonia and hydrogen production is an especially attractive option for the region because of its abundant oil and gas resources and the low cost of extraction, the Apicorp report added. The UAE’s Adnoc said in May 2021 that is building a “world-scale” blue ammonium facility with a 1 mn ton per annum production capacity.

Uzbekistan’s Energy Ministry has reached financial close on a 500 MW wind farm, according to a ministry statement out yesterday. The project, which will be built by Emirati renewable energy company Masdar, is expected to cost some USD 600 mn to build. The wind farm — positioned as Central Asia’s largest — will replace 1.1 mn tons of CO2 annually and power 500k homes. commercial operations are expected to start by end-2024.

This is not Masdar’s only project in Uzbekistan: Masdar is also expanding the capacity of existing solar power plants by 890 MW in three regions across the country, the statement says. It also launched the 100 MW Nur Navoiy photovoltaic plant last year.

These projects line up with Uzbekistan’s green energy goals: The Uzbekistan government’s long-term strategy to diversify its energy mix targets 8 GW of solar and 12 GW of wind capacity by 2026 and 2030, respectively. The country is developing solar and wind power plants with a capacity of 5.5 GW, the ministry statement reads.

And MENA companies are racing to be part of it: Earlier this month, Saudi utility provider ACWA Power signed three agreements for green energy investments totalling USD 12.4 bn with Uzbekistan, the company said in a Tadawul filing. The projects include a USD 2.4 bn wind farm with a capacity of 1.5 GW, a USD 10 bn investment cooperation agreement to develop renewable energy and green hydrogen projects, and a roadmap for green hydrogen investment.

Italy’s Eni explores 10 GW of renewables in Egypt: Italian energy giant Eni is looking into the possibility of building as much as 10 GW of solar and wind power projects in Egypt, according to a company statement. This follows a meeting on Tuesday between Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi.

Background: Eni is already a major fossil fuel player in Egypt, where it operates one of the world’s largest natural gas fields. But as we reported yesterday in EnterpriseAM, it is not yet a big player in clean energy. The Italian major’s interest in renewables in Egypt comes as Europe pushes hard to diversify its energy mix away from Russia.

Eni is pushing to become greener across its footprint: Eni is planning to accelerate the decarbonization of its global activities through carbon capture and storage and hydrogen projects. In Egypt, the company is working on a feasibility study for establishing a green hydrogen plant and agreed to work on a small-scale carbon capture pilot project. Elsewhere, its Plenitude arm combines traditional electricity and gas sales with renewable energy production and electric mobility. The company has so far installed solar and wind plants in Kazakhstan, Italy, Spain, France and the US at a combined capacity of over 1 GW.

India’s Hinduja Group considers EV assembly line in UAE: India’s diversified conglomerate Hinduja Group may be eyeing an electric vehicle (EV) assembly line in the UAE after the launch of its EV company Switch Mobility, according to Gulf News. The company will start testing demand in the country for electric buses and light commercial vehicles.

To import or to assemble. That’s the question: Currently, Hinduja is looking into whether it plans to import EV from India and the UK, or having a local assembly line in RAK. The decision hinges on price points and demand for now.

But the company is hopeful that there’s the business case for local assembly: “We see huge potential for growth through Switch’s expansion in UAE and the GCC and look forward to launch our electric vehicles in these markets soon,” Hinduja said in a statement picked up by Zawya.

Should the decision go through, its EVs will likely be assembled at its Ras Al Khaimah automotive plant, because “we have an extensive vendor base supplying our existing operations,” executive chairman of Ashok Leyland Dheeraj Hinduja told Gulf News. The plant is a joint venture between Hinduja’s flagship brand for conventional bus assembly Ashok Leyland and the Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority (RAKIA). It has an installed capacity of 4k buses a year and exports vehicles to African countries.

More about Hinduja: The Anglo-Indian transnational conglomerate is active in 11 sectors around the world and posted revenues of USD 50 bn in 2021. These sectors include automotive, oil and chemicals, banking and finance, IT, cybersecurity, healthcare, trading, infrastructure development, media, power and real estate.

Interest in the UAE’s EV market has been gaining momentum: M Glory Holding Group, a Dubai- based tech investor, is opening an EV manufacturing plant, The National News reported. The USD 408 bn facility will be one of the largest in the region and has the capacity to manufacture 55k EVs a year. Similarly, intelligent EV company NWTN has partnered with Sultan Investments to establish an EV assembly base in Khalifa Industrial Zone in Abu Dhabi.m:

Thanks to smart policy: In March, Abu Dhabi launched its regulatory policy for EV charging stations in a bid to attract investments in the sector and encourage consumers to buy and drive EVs. The UAE’s charging station to vehicle ratio is among the world’s highest, with the aim to have over 1K stations by 2025, according to a 2021 report by Clean and Energy Business Council MENA.

Bee’ah Recycling launches SRF facility producing green fuel: Bee’ah Recycling — a subsidiary of Emirati waste management company Bee’ah — has added a new solid recovered fuel (SRF) processing facility to its integrated waste management complex in Sharjah, according to a WAM statement. The facility will produce an alternative green fuel from the commercial residue waste it receives — which can be used to power cement factories. Bee’ah says the facility reduces both CO2 emissions and landfill, while helping to build a circular economy.

The facility can produce 85k tonnes of green fuel every year, or 250 tonnes a day, the statement says. Most of this will be sold to Sharjah Cement, which entered into an agreement in late-2020 to receive 73k tonnes of green fuel from Bee’ah Recycling every year. Bee’ah Recycling claims the facility’s waste processing model is the first of its kind in the region.

Investment ticket is a mystery, but the hope is it will be “financially viable”: The statement doesn’t disclose how much was invested in the SRF facility or the price at which Bee’ah Recycling will sell its green fuel. But the facility is operating on a model that’s both environmentally beneficial and financially viable, Bee’ah Recycling CEO Daker El Rabaya is quoted in the statement as saying. “The SRF facility follows a purely commercial model that is fully independent of gate fees,” El Rabaya added. Gate fees are the payments usually charged by waste treatment facilities to accept waste.

Other countries in the region — like Egypt — have struggled to get WtE off the ground: Though WtE was touted as a potentially lucrative shot for Egypt’s private sector and the country launched its first WtE plant last year, companies told Enterprise that structural problems meant widespread WtE investment was still not financially viable. More financial incentives — including gate fees paid by the government — were essential to get the industry off the ground, private sector players told Enterprise.

Could JinkoSolar’s new Tiger Neo modules be MENA’s solar panels of the future? N-type TOPCon solar panels are seeing increased demand among global solar producers — and could even outpace demand for traditional p-type PERC products within three years, head of MENA product management at Chinese solar panel manufacturing heavyweight JinkoSolar Mohamed Saady Dweik recently told pv magazine. The Chinese manufacturer, rated AA in the 2022 PV ModuleTech Bankability Ratings, is now poised to orient its future strategy around its new Tiger Neo modules, launched in November 2021.

Tiger Neo modules are primarily geared towards industry or utility-scale systems, notes a recent Solar Analytica review.

They score highly on overall efficiency: The Tiger Neo modules were immediately deemed “ultra-efficient” in a November Solar Power World review, which noted they’ve made “further enhancements in performance, power, energy density and reliability” to existing n-type TOPCon technology.

As well as ticking the power output and conversion efficiency boxes: The new Tiger Neo modules deliver on both power output and conversion efficiency, according to reviewers. “In mass production, the new [Tiger Neo] module delivers a maximum power output of up to 620 W and an ultra-high conversion efficiency of up to 22.30%,” says the Solar Power World review. A May 2022 ranking of the top ten solar panels available globally, by non-profit Solar Edition, puts two Tiger Neo modules in its top five: the Tiger Neo 480 W panels with 22.24% conversion efficiency come in at number two, and the Tiger Neo 615 W panels with 22% conversion efficiency come in at number four.

They get kudos for innovative design… Solar Analytica bestows glowing praise on the module design, saying it’s not a question of whether Tiger Neo will be awarded a major international citation for its design — but about how many awards it will bag.

And, of course, price: Jinko Tiger Neo will “likely be outstanding for the price, mainly due to the economies of scale Jinko tends to do so well at,” notes Solar Analytica. While n-type modules remain more expensive than their p-type counterparts, JinkoSolar found that by reducing the price gap between the two, they could bring down the levelized cost of electricity for producers and consumers. “This was enough for the market to adopt [the n-type],” Waleed AlHallaj, business development manager, JinkoSolar MENA, in a recent conversation with Utilities magazine.

Overall, “n-type TOPCon currently has a clear edge in mass manufacturing efficiency, cost control, and market share,” according to a March post in Solar Analytica. The n-type’s recent “remarkable cell performance” is in large part due to its superior temperature coefficient, Solar Analytica notes. While the p-type module typically has a coefficient range of -0.34%/ °C to -0.36%/ °C, Tiger Neo has a temperature coefficient of -0.30%/ °C, Solar Analytica adds.

Here also, Tiger Neo delivers: Tiger Neo solar modules combine reliability and low degradation with high-energy yield performance, according to a March 2022 JinkoSolar press release published by Bloomberg. Its low temperature coefficient makes Tiger Neo well placed to withstand extreme and high-temperature environments, notes Solar Power World.

JinkoSolar is planning a total switch to n-type TOPCon modules in the coming years: At the beginning of 2022, JinkoSolar allocated 10GW — some 25% — of its total manufacturing capacity for the year to n-type TOPCon modules, said Dweik. By the end of the year, this could increase to 70-80%, said AlHallaj.

“Without a doubt, within 2023, we see ourselves focusing on our new Tiger Neo, to maintain our position as the biggest global supplier of this technology,” added AlHallaj.

Plans to launch carbon credits in Egypt are alive and well: Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority is holding consultations about plans to set up a local carbon market, it said in a statement (pdf) Wednesday. The idea of launching carbon credits in Egypt has been around for a few years and has been pushed by the Environment Ministry and the EGX under its former boss (and now head of the FRA) Mohamed Farid. In February the two sides were said to be preparing to present the plans to the cabinet but nothing has been heard since. Carbon credits are tradable certificates designed give companies incentives to lower emissions.

OTHER STORIES WORTH KNOWING ABOUT THIS MORNING-

• HSBC Bahrain plans to roll out debit, credit and commercial payment cards made out of recycled PVC (rPVC) plastic, eliminating single-use PVC plastic by the end of 2026, the company announced in a statement.
• Munich-based banknote printing firm Giesecke+Devrient will introduce a range of environmentally friendly materials in MENA, including a “green banknote” manufactured using recycled plastic waste, chairman of the company told Gulf News.
• In the UAE, Deliveroo is reducing its use of single-use plastic by joining sustainability initiative Dubai Can, according to a statement picked up by Zawya.
• UK climate action startup Expect raised GBP 750k in their pre-seed funding round to expand in the GCC and other regions, according to a statement.

Correction: 3 September 2022

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the FRA was holding consultations to introduce a carbon offset tax.

Italian investment bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti agreed to a EUR 100 mn loan agreement for renewable projects with the Africa Finance Corporation, according to a statement. The loan will be used to finance renewable energy projects in Africa and build the infrastructure needed for the continent’s renewable energy transition.

OTHER STORIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD WORTH KNOWING ABOUT-

• US philanthropic outfit Rockefeller Foundation dedicated USD 5.5 mn to promote climate resilient infrastructure and economic development in Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda over the next three years, according to a statement.
• Norwegian renewable energy company Scatec secured USD 102 mn in financial risk reduction for a 765 MW combined solar power and battery plant in South Africa from Norway’s credit agency Export Finance Norway (Eksfin), according to a statement.

An elephant never forgets — and may adapt well to climate change too (if the poachers don’t get them first): Animals that have longer lifespans and bear fewer offspring such as elephants, tigers, llamas, will be better equipped to adapt to climate change, new research indicates. The study examined 157 species in the animal kingdom and found that critters that live longer have evolved in a way that helps them withstand environmental fluctuations they’re likely to experience over their long lifespans. Having fewer descendants also means that these animals can allocate more resources to their limited offspring. By focusing energy and resources on fewer offspring, these animals can wait out droughts and other extreme weather events, the study notes.