Latest news with #RumaithaalBusaidi
Observer
14-04-2025
- Business
- Observer
Oman targets 3rd GH2 auction round by April-end
MUSCAT: The much-anticipated third round of Oman's auction of land blocks for large-scale, integrated green hydrogen projects is expected to be launched before the end of this month, a key representative of Hydrom – the orchestrator and master-planner of this sector – has revealed. Rumaitha al Busaidi, Business and ICV Development Manager – Hydrom, said the third auction round would be modelled largely on the lines of the successful first two rounds, which have led to the award of eight land blocks to date, with a total green hydrogen production commitment of around 1 million tonnes per annum starting from 2030. 'It is confirmed that we will be going to the market with another round of auctions by the end of this month,' said Al Busaidi. 'The timeline is around 7 to 8 months usually, but that will be much more clear once we actually move to the market. It'll be divided into two phases – the RFQ stage, and then you have the RFP stage, as is usually the process. We're aiming to award the next round of projects hopefully by the first quarter of 2026.' The official made the revelations in a presentation at the Oman Water Week 2025 forum, which concluded at Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre last week. Her talk focused on the Capacities, R&D and ICV aspects of Oman's green hydrogen ecosystem. Significantly, Hydrom is also weighing a separate auction platform to help secure a market for green hydrogen for local industries and applications within Oman. 'We are exploring different forms of auctions to create and build the market (for green hydrogen) in Oman,' Rumaitha noted. '(This) will target specific industries that will be developing in Oman, like green steel, fertilizers and others. And we will also have a double-sided auction, which is more of a government support mechanism, where at the moment we know that the price of green hydrogen is quite high, so what can we do to bridge that price gap between the developer or the supplier and the one that requires the offtake of the green hydrogen. So these are things that we are still working on. We'll have more clarity by the end of the year.' In addition to its principal role as sector orchestrator, Hydrom is also overseeing the roll-out of shared infrastructure – encompassing desalinated water, green electricity grids, hydrogen pipeline networks, and so on – to support the green hydrogen projects. This shared infrastructure, Rumaitha said, lies at the heart of Oman's investment appeal to international green hydrogen developers. 'The shared infrastructure is a big element as to why you are having a lot of international players coming in. This is because we are taking on the risk along with the developer, while they're building the things they're really good at. We're also building things that we're really good at and maximizing value creation rather than just let the developer build their own desalination capacity, do their own pipelines and so on. So we are shouldering this risk in order for the industry to also grow together.' Going forward, Hydrom also envisions a role for itself as the aggregator and shipper of green hydrogen, replicating the role wholly state-owned Integrated Gas Company (IGC) currently performs with regard to natural gas supply. That additional responsibility is foreseen around 2030, when the production of green hydrogen is set to become a commercial reality. 'We know that once production starts by 2030, there will be some green hydrogen production demand for Oman. So we are envisaging a role that we can incubate a process very similar to how IGC, the Integrated Gas Company, works where all the requests for green hydrogen demand comes to one centralized entity to be able to process and honour those requests once they come in,' she added.
Zawya
18-02-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Oman's liquid hydrogen export project gains traction with feasibility progress
MUSCAT: Oman's plans to establish itself as a key exporter of liquefied hydrogen (LH2) are advancing, with feasibility studies confirming the project's viability. Speaking at the World Hydrogen MENA Congress in Dubai last week, Rumaitha al Busaidi, Business and ICV Development Manager at Hydrom, reaffirmed the country's commitment to developing a full-fledged liquid hydrogen supply chain to serve European markets. "We think liquid hydrogen can work, it is feasible," Al Busaidi stated, emphasising that Oman is on track to become one of the world's top green hydrogen producers by 2030. The project, spearheaded by Hydrom — the orchestrator of Oman's green hydrogen sector — in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Athens-based Ecolog, and German power company EnBW, is expected to create a seamless export route from Oman to the Port of Amsterdam. BUILDING THE HYDROGEN CORRIDOR The initiative builds on the Joint Study Agreement (JSA) signed during COP28 in 2023, which brought together Oman, the Port of Amsterdam, Zenith Energy Terminals, and GasLog to explore the development of a liquid hydrogen export chain. The planned liquefaction facility in Duqm will process hydrogen at -253°C, allowing it to be transported via specialised Ecolog vessels with a capacity of 2,000 tonnes per shipment. Once in Amsterdam, the hydrogen will be either regasified and supplied to German industries via pipeline or distributed in its liquefied form via trucks within the Netherlands. The Port of Amsterdam's hydrogen terminal will also serve a dual role, including the export of captured CO₂ from European industries back to Oman for potential utilisation or sequestration. INSIGHTS FROM GH2 INVESTOR DAY Oman's hydrogen ambitions were previously highlighted at the GH2 Investor Day in December last year, where Al Busaidi and Ellen Ruhotas, Head of Hydrogen Midstream at Ecolog, provided an in-depth look into the project's development. They stressed the importance of bridging the midstream gap between strong hydrogen producers like Oman and growing demand centers in Europe. "The journey actually started when two nations... looked at each other and said we need to come up with a way of how we actually make this a reality," Al Busaidi said, emphasising the mutual interest between Oman and the Netherlands. The event also underscored the project's engineering complexity, particularly in scaling up liquefaction and shipping technologies to support a commercial hydrogen market. Ruhotas compared the initiative to the early days of the LNG industry, pointing out that commercialising LH2 exports requires overcoming technical challenges such as boil-off losses during shipping. She emphasized that Oman's approach covers the entire value chain, ensuring efficiency and cost-effectiveness. ENGINEERING AND MARKET CHALLENGES The project targets industries that are difficult to electrify, such as brick and glass manufacturing, data centres, and food processing facilities, where demand for green hydrogen is rising. Minimising hydrogen losses during transport remains a key challenge, as unlike LNG, hydrogen's low density makes efficient shipping more complex. Despite these hurdles, feasibility studies indicate strong commercial potential, and Europe's demand for clean hydrogen continues to grow. Al Busaidi emphasised that the full hydrogen value chain—from production to liquefaction, transport, and 2022 © All right reserved for Oman Establishment for Press, Publication and Advertising (OEPPA) Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
