Hive Hydrogen, Built Africa and Linde’s South African subsidiary Afrox have announced the establishment of a 780,000 ton/year Green Ammonia Plant at the Coega Special Economic Zone alongside the Port of Ngqura in South Africa.
The $4.6bn project will be developed two phases and have its own dedicated power supply. The facility will use renewable energy to desalinate water, extract hydrogen and combine it with nitrogen to produce green ammonia. The water will be supplied by Cerebos, Africa’s largest salt products producer.
The ammonia will then be cooled, liquefied and stored for export before being dispatched by pipeline from the storage tanks onto ships at the port of Ngqura.
In doing so, the partners aim at meeting increasing global demand for ammonia, used by key industries such as agriculture, chemicals and mining but also as a maritime fuel and substitution fuel for coal.
The choice of the Coega SEZ as project site also supports South Africa’s industrialization strategy around the Ngqura deep-water port. In November this year, South Africa’s state-owned Central Energy Fund (CEF) issued a request for information (Rfi) for the development of an independently managed midstream LNG hub from the port.