Oman sets up new company to develop gH2 common infrastructure

MUSCAT, DEC 13

Hydrom, the orchestrator and master planner of Oman's green hydrogen industry, has announced the incorporation of a new company, provisionally named ‘InfraCo’, to set up common infrastructure that will be shared by developers of green hydrogen (gH2) projects in the Sultanate of Oman.

Speaking on the second day of the Green Hydrogen Summit Oman (GHSO) Conference, Managing Director of Hydrom, Eng Abdulaziz al Shidhani, revealed that the establishment of a shared infrastructure is key to developing a fully integrated hydrogen ecosystem in Oman.

According to Al Shidhani, the shared infrastructure sites will support a number of green hydrogen projects slated to come up in Al Wusta and Dhofar Governorates. To date, agreements for six such projects have been signed.

The shared infrastructure sites will entail three key aspects: electricity interconnection to production sites, the supply of desalinated water to production sites and the transportation of hydrogen to ports and free zones.

Al Shidhani shared that OQ Gas Networks will be responsible for managing hydrogen pipelines, while Nama Water Services and Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC) have both been nominated by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals to oversee water networks and electricity connectivity respectively. Responsibility for overseeing the desalination component will be assigned at a later date, he noted.

Hydrom is committed to “to deliver the common infrastructure before the first production of hydrogen” by 2029, he said.

The common infrastructure project is expected to be completed in three main phases, the official explained. It starts with the Preliminary Front End Engineering and Design phase (Pre-FEED), which will be led and incubated by Hydrom, taking into consideration the input of various stakeholders in the green hydrogen industry in Oman. The second phase will involve the Front End Engineering and Design phase and the Final Investment Decision stage. This will be followed by the construction of the shared infrastructure sites, due for completion by 2029.

Earlier, on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, Hydrom recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Asyad Group, the global integrated logistics group of Oman, to “establish a logistics infrastructure for green hydrogen”.