Saudi Aramco is cautious on hydrogen outlook

While Saudi Arabia's oil giant Aramco has plans to invest in blue hydrogen; a company's official, told Bloomberg,  it will take at least until the end of this decade before a global market for hydrogen is developed.

“We’re going to have a large share” of the market for blue hydrogen, Aramco’s chief technology officer, Ahmad Al-Khowaiter, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Sunday in Dhahran, eastern Saudi Arabia, where the company’s based. “The scale up isn’t going to happen before 2030. We’re not going to see large volumes of blue ammonia before then.”

Al-Khowaiter told a group of journalists on Sunday evening that the outlook of hydrogen demand through to 2030 remains uncertain.  Hydrogen is seen as an alternative in slowing climate change since it emits no harmful greenhouse gases.

"We hope that by 2030 there will be the market demand, and we will be ready to supply that demand at a world scale," Al-Khowaiter said.

In September, Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, made its first shipment of blue ammonia to Japan, as a pilot project. However, the company said it will decide on further shipments depending on the level of demand.

"Confidently, by 2050 we will be a major player there," said Al-Khowaiter. "2030 is harder to predict. If there is a market, we will be part of it. If the market does not show up, it doesn't scale, then that's out of our control." Al-Khowaiter said that global hydrogen demand by 2050 could reach to 18 million boe/d.

He explained that they see hydrogen as one more product in the market and not a replacement.