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New Energy World
New Energy World embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low carbon technologies.
The Middle East’s hydrogen reality
23/3/2022
6 min read
The Middle East has set extremely bold growth goals for clean hydrogen up to 2030 – despite it being a largely untested market. Now what? Sustainability consultant Michelle Meineke reports.
Eight years. This is the extraordinarily tight timetable that some Middle Eastern nations have set to become leading suppliers in a global clean hydrogen market which could be valued at $600bn by 2050. And this surge is almost from a standing start. By 2030, OPEC linchpin Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and fellow oil producer Oman are particularly pushing to build supply to feed the significant demand projections emerging in Asia and Europe (rallied by the latter’s $517bn of hydrogen-related investments by 2050).
Seven projects are underway in the UAE as OPEC’s third biggest producer aims for a 25% share of the global market for clean hydrogen by 2030, while Oman’s capacity for clean hydrogen could reach 1 GW by 2025, 10 GW by 2030 and 30 GW by 2040. Regional hegemon Saudi Arabia has set production targets for 2.9mn t/y of clean hydrogen by 2030 and 4mn t/y by 2035.
‘We see ourselves seriously involved in hydrogen and we want to size up that market. We know for sure that we will be the most competitive producer,’ said Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Kingdom’s Energy Minister in February.