Australia – Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), a global renewable energy corporation, is collaborating with Incitec Pivot, Australia’s largest fertilizer provider, to perform a feasibility study to convert its ammonia-production facility on Gibson Island in Brisbane to run on green, renewable hydrogen. Currently, natural gas is used as a feedstock at the factory.
In addition, FFI intends to build an on-site electrolysis facility that will generate up to 50,000 tonnes of renewable, green hydrogen per year for conversion into green ammonia.
If the initiative is successful, it will protect hundreds of manufacturing jobs in Queensland while also generating a new domestic and export market for green, renewable ammonia. The generated green ammonia might also serve as a low-carbon fuel source for Brisbane’s Port and airport.
Decarbonizing existing industrial units continues to be a significant barrier in the transition to a green, renewable future. FFI wants to demonstrate that infrastructure conversion is both technically and economically possible, thereby accelerating decarbonization while protecting jobs.
The news is consistent with the Queensland and Commonwealth governments’ strategies to establish an innovative and competitive green hydrogen economy that provides stable domestic supply as well as new export prospects.
Incitec Pivot is Australia’s largest fertilizer supplier, producing around two million tonnes per year for usage in the grain, cotton, pasture, dairy, sugar, and horticultural industries. The project’s initial phase will be a feasibility study, with preliminary results due by the end of 2021.
This is FFI’s second big news in Queensland this week, following an announcement to construct the Global Green Energy Manufacturing Centre (GEM) at Gladstone, the world’s largest electrolyzer, renewable industry, and equipment manufacturing center.
FFI has pledged to producing 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen per year by 2030, with the goal of increasing to 50 million tonnes in the following decade. While FFI’s green hydrogen will feed both domestic and export markets, it will also allow Fortescue to meet its industry-leading carbon neutrality target of 2030.
