Wintershall Dea, NWO enter hydrogen production/North Sea carbon storage venture

Offshore staff

KASSEL, Germany — Wintershall Dea and Nord-West Oelleitung (NWO) will collaborate on Wintershall Dea's BlueHyNow project, investigating a potential hydrogen production plant on the NWO site in Wilhelmshaven, northern Germany.

This would produce large volumes of hydrogen using Norwegian offshore natural gas.

BlueHyNow is part of the EnergyHub currently under construction in Wilhelmshaven. NWO has unused pipeline infrastructure in the region and a site at the deepwater port in Wilhelmshaven.

The two companies have signed an memorandum of understanding to complete a feasibility study on the hydrogen plant by the end of this year.

"To ensure that we can guarantee future energy security in Germany and drive forward the energy transition, we need hydrogen from natural gas as well as hydrogen from renewables," said Hugo Dijkgraaf, Wintershall Dea CTO and board member. "Along the value chain, from production of hydrogen to its distribution to consumers, we want to pull together as partners in the future and accelerate the development of the urgently needed hydrogen network."

The hydrogen produced can be delivered by pipeline to industrial customers for use as a decarbonized source of energy source or as a raw material, reducing their CO₂ emissions.

According to current forecasts, Germany’s hydrogen demand will rise from 55 TWh/year at present to 90 to 110 TWh/year by 2030. However, the government's coalition agreement focusses on hydrogen based on electricity from renewable energies and will only add about 28 TWh/year, Wintershall Dea said.

The company wants to support development of the hydrogen market with BlueHyNow and its capacity of 5.6 TWh/year. The CO₂ generated during production would be captured and then shipped to Norway and Denmark for safe and permanent storage in deep geological rock layers in the subsurface offshore.

08.04.2022