OSLO, Sept 20 (Askume) – Statoil (EQNR.OL) has cancelled blue hydrogen shipments to Germany , a spokesman said on Friday.
Equinor and Germany’s RWE Group (RWEG.DE) signed a memorandum of understanding in January 2022 to create a hydrogen supply chain for German power plants to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions .
Plans include using natural gas combined with carbon capture and storage to produce hydrogen (known as blue hydrogen) in Norway and exporting it to hydrogen power plants in Germany via the world’s first offshore hydrogen pipeline.
“The hydrogen pipeline has not yet been proven to be viable. This also means that the hydrogen production plan has also been delayed,” Equinor spokesman Magnus Frantzén Eidsvold told Askume.
“We decided to end this initial project,” he said.
The German company said in emailed comments that the pipeline is not an RWE project but requires support from Norway and Germany.
Last year, Equinor Chief Executive Anders Opedal said total supply chain costs could reach “tens of billions of euros” and that pipelines alone would cost about 3 billion euros ($3.35 billion).
Eidsvold said Equinor could not proceed with the project without a long-term commitment to import hydrogen from European buyers.
“We can’t make these kinds of investments when we don’t have long-term agreements and markets in place,” Eidsvold said.
Eidsvold said plans with RWE to develop hydrogen-ready gas-fired power plants in Germany would go ahead, but the hydrogen for those plants would be bought on the continent rather than exported from Norway.
The German government is in intensive talks with Norway on the issue, a German economy ministry official told Askume on Saturday.
The new plan now involves converting Norwegian natural gas into blue hydrogen in the Netherlands and sending the captured carbon dioxide back to Norway for storage, the official said.
RWE said gas-fired power plants produced with hydrogen could start generating power from 2030, as long as the German government approves a support mechanism for such plants.
Eidsvold said Equinor would also pursue other early-stage hydrogen projects such as in the UK and the Netherlands.
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