Australian energy giant ditches US plant as Trump attacks green power
The Perth-based energy giant told investors on Wednesday it would take a $US140 million ($214 million) profit hit after deciding to walk away from the H2OK liquid hydrogen project it had been planning in Oklahoma, blaming the rising cost of making cleaner hydrogen and weaker-than-expected customer demand.
'We have made the decision to exit the H2OK project, demonstrating our disciplined approach to portfolio management,' Woodside chief executive Meg O'Neill said on Wednesday.
Woodside, a producer of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG), is pursuing the development of lower-carbon hydrogen as part of its climate transition strategy. Because hydrogen emits only water vapour when burned, it is considered by many to be a promising climate-friendly energy source that could eventually substitute fossil fuels and help clean up heavy-polluting industries, as long as it is made using low- or zero-carbon energy sources. Woodside's H2OK would have used an electrolyser, powered by the electricity grid, to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
However, Woodside announced it was pausing the H2OK project in January, shortly after Donald Trump's return to the White House. It also scrapped a separate plan to build a concentrated solar thermal energy facility in California through a partnership with Heliogen, a company backed by billionaire Bill Gates.
While not directly attributing those decisions to Trump's energy agenda, Woodside at the time said it needed to consider the implications of the administration's pledge to dismantle support for US clean energy investments, including halting the disbursement of funds from the $567 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which had been offering generous tax breaks for renewable developers.
This month, Trump secured the passage of a giant tax and domestic policy bill through Congress, which will make it cheaper and easier for companies to drill and produce fossil fuels, while cutting funding for electric cars and wind and solar farms.
Woodside remains committed to one clean energy investment in the US, the Beaumont lower-carbon ammonia project in Texas. The project was 95 per cent completed as of June 30, the company said.
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