Aramco makes the case for low carbon hydrogen and international congress

At the World Hydrogen Congress held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on Oct. 12, Aramco’s chief engineer Khalid Y. Al-Qahtani joined a panel to discuss “Incentivizing the Use of Low Carbon Hydrogen.”

The World Hydrogen Congress acts as a senior executive networking congress for the clean hydrogen industry. Its mission is to accelerate the global commercialization of clean hydrogen and to help connect the industry by providing an annual diary date for high quality content and high-intensity networking.

On the panel, Al-Qahtani set out that Aramco’s strategy is driven by the belief that the world’s need for more affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy will continue to grow, and that a broad mix of energy solutions will be required to meet this demand. 

All energy resources will be needed to support a successful transition. Renewable power, waste to energy, e-fuels, direct air capture, new energy storage, and carbon capture and storage are some of the technologies that will shape the energy transition. And hydrogen is key for Aramco.
— Khalid Y. Al-Qahtani

“We believe hydrogen can provide a material reduction in greenhouse gases, as the global hydrogen market will continue to develop over the next decade. Lower carbon hydrogen offers a scalable and cost-effective option for deep decarbonization in hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, maritime, aviation, and other industrial applications.”

Al-Qahtani noted that according to the Hydrogen Council, global hydrogen demand could increase up to 660 million metric tons per annum by 2050, accounting for 22% of global energy demand with annual abatement potential of 7 gigatons per annum in 2050. 

“Oil and gas majors are well positioned to lead the development of the global hydrogen market by leveraging their natural strengths, industry know-how and ample resources, such as natural gas.” 

He highlighted the numerous factors that will enable acceleration:

• The right policy framework with the right incentives
• Globally accepted certification standards for low carbon hydrogen/ammonia
• The establishment of large-scale logistics and infrastructure, e.g., port facilities; storage terminals, last mile logistics, domestic delivery by ship within destination markets, and hydrogen/ammonia carriers at scale
• Large-scale development of carbon sinks. 

“At Aramco, we are involved in the development of many of these enablers,” he said.

We anticipate lower carbon hydrogen demand to ramp up from 2030 onwards.
— Khalid Y. Al-Qahtani

“This uptake in demand would be underpinned by commercial-scale deployment of lower carbon hydrogen in end-use applications ... and all stakeholders across the value chain need to work together to unlock and enable the eco-system,” he said.

“Fundamentally, we need a mature market to enable the scale up of technologies … and to assess the structure of that demand.”