OCI N : Decarbonizing the production of laundry power with renewable ammonia

Fertiglobe, the strategic partnership between ADNOC and OCI Global, has announced the delivery of the world's first ISCC PLUS (International Sustainability and Carbon Certification) certified renewable ammonia, being used to pilot near-zero emissions laundry ingredient.

The renewable ammonia was produced at the company's facilities in Egypt using renewable hydrogen from its pilot Egypt Green Hydrogen electrolyzer and will go into the production of synthetic soda ash - a key ingredient in laundry powder - for Unilever.

The world-first shipment was sent to Tuticorin Alkali Chemicals and Fertilisers Limited (TFL) who will produce the soda ash for Unilever's India business, Hindustan Unilever (HUL), highlighting the importance of collaboration across supply chains to materially reduce the carbon footprint of consumer products.

Ahmed El-Hoshy, CEO of Fertiglobe and OCI Global, commented: "This shipment is an important milestone for Fertiglobe, a breakthrough in producing and supplying renewable ammonia to the world, and for the ongoing execution of our hydrogen roadmap. As a pioneer in renewable ammonia, we see immense potential in its ability to decarbonize industries and drive the global energy transition. Looking ahead, we are committed to leveraging our state-of-the-art ammonia facilities and global distribution infrastructure to expand our low-carbon ammonia capacity to meet growing demand and further reduce the carbon footprint of our business."

Pioneering steps to decarbonize everyday consumer goods

Renewable and low carbon ammonia will play an essential role in the hydrogen economy and provides a practical solution, that is available today, to help meet global decarbonization goals. As the world's third largest producer of ammonia, we are already playing a leading role in realizing lower carbon ammonia's potential across current applications, such as fertilizer production, and as an industrial ingredient, and emerging markets, such as shipping and power.

This latest announcement comes in a year of milestones for OCI working with our customers to decarbonize a wide range of everyday value chains. These include with Agravis to grow wheat to make bread, and most recently with Rohm to produce methyl methacrylate (MMA), an important precursor for PLEXIGLAS® - the world's most popular brand of acrylic glass. By working with Unilever India on this world-first pilot project, we continue our leadership and advocacy for ammonia's role in decarbonizing end markets that ultimately reach consumers.

Scaling up production to meet growing demand

As the momentum behind the application of lower carbon and renewable ammonia in different downstream value chains grows, our pioneering projects across the world are scaling up production of both green and blue ammonia to meet demand, and we are responsible for 30% of all binding clean hydrogen offtake agreements, according to Bloomberg NEF and Hydrogen Insight.

Only last month, we announced a new offtake agreement in Texas with New Fortress Energy which will significantly scale up our green ammonia production capacity in the US to around 165,000 tons per year. This additional capacity builds our 1.1 million tpa blue ammonia plant in Texas, in partnership with Linde, which is scheduled to begin production in 2025. The site is being designed in a future-proof way, so it can use green hydrogen as a feedstock in the future to produce green ammonia.

In the MENA region, the Egypt Green Hydrogen project where this shipment was produced, is being developed in partnership with Scatec, Orascom Construction, the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company, and the Sovereign Fund of Egypt. Once completed, this project will have the capacity to produce up to 15,000 tons per annum (tpa) of green hydrogen, serving as feedstock for producing up to 90,000 tpa of renewable ammonia at Fertiglobe's facilities located in the Suez Canal Economic Zone in Egypt. Other Fertiglobe initiatives include the Ta'ziz 1 million tpa low-carbon ammonia project, the low-carbon ammonia pilot in the UAE at Fertil and the green hydrogen project in partnership with Masdar and ENGIE in the UAE.

Find out more about our lower carbon and renewable ammonia product portfolio and how we are powering a cleaner future sooner here.

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