Horisont Energi and Port of Rotterdam join forces on blue ammonia shipping

Norwegian clean energy company Horisont Energi and the Port of Rotterdam have agreed on transporting blue ammonia from Norway to Rotterdam.

Under the memorandum of understanding, the parties will explore a collaboration to ship blue ammonia. Their goal is to set up a corridor for transport.

Produced in Northern Norway from natural gas, ammonia will arrive at the port of Rotterdam. Then, it will be further distributed to Northwestern Europe.

Horisont Energi’s Barents Blue project is to produce it. The project is the first world-scale blue ammonia plant, located in Finnmark in Northern Norway, which includes planned CO2 storage offshore.

Moreover, the final investment decision for Barents Blue is to take place towards the end of 2022. Once operational, the facility will have a production capacity of 3000 tonnes of ammonia per day or one million tonnes per year.

Blue ammonia could be shipped to Rotterdam by 2025.

Ammonia is a very efficient hydrogen carrier. As a result, the net-zero CO2 emission ammonia is one of the most promising fuels for the decarbonisation of the shipping industry.

“There’s an important role for blue hydrogen if we want to realize the international climate ambitions. This is because especially in the coming years, there will not be enough green hydrogen to meet the demand. We’ll need every possible solution. We, therefore, focus not only on green but also on blue, just as we don’t only look at local production but also at imports”, said Nico van Dooren, director of new business at the Port of Rotterdam.