Saudi Arabia and Energy: the blue of ammonia or the green...

The first Saudi blue ammonia exports to Japan were launched on Sunday to help solve the accumulating energy problems in the world, as if Saudi Arabia – the largest natural energy reservoir and the second largest oil exporter in the world – says it is not here in this world to sell only, but to give the world sustainable energy solutions.Earlier this week, Saudi Aramco and the Japan Energy Economics Institute (IEEJ), in partnership with SABIC, announced the production and export of the first shipment of high-quality blue ammonia from Saudi Arabia to Japan, amounting to 40 tons to be used in generating carbon-free energy, followed by successive shipments. To achieve Japan’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 23% in 2030 compared to 2013.

Blue ammonia is ammonia that is produced by a mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen without releasing carbon gases, and to simply understand the topic, ammonia, also called nitrogen trihydride, is a colorless chemical gas that has a strong and pungent smell and consists of three hydrogen atoms and one nitrogen atom, NH3, and does not contain any carbon atom. The beginnings of the era of ammonia production were done by Haber technology and then it developed into the Haber-Bosch technology, which is widely used industrially, whereby hydrogen atoms are compressed with nitrogen atoms under high pressure and temperature conditions, with a metallic catalyst to form two ammonia molecules, NH3.

The ammonia in the usual way is produced by air pressure, which contains about 78% of nitrogen with hydrocarbon natural gas, which is usually associated with oil in the extraction processes, but the problem is that the use of hydrocarbon natural gas causes the release of carbon dioxide CO2, which is greater An air pollutant at all.

The integration in which Saudi Aramco and SABIC have succeeded is based on the Council of Economic Affairs and Development chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the ministries of energy and industry. With the presence of carbon dioxide captures, and preventing its release to the atmosphere through technologies developed by SABIC, to capture and isolate carbon dioxide and use it in the methanol industry in Jubail Industrial City, and oil extraction in the Aramco plant in Othmaniyah.

This is why carbon-trapped ammonia is called “blue ammonia”, and it is an industrial giant step towards preserving the global climate and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Japan aims to be one of the leading countries in the field of using hydrogen contained in ammonia in the production of electric energy, free from any carbon emissions for reasons related to the environment and the sustainability of life on the Japanese archipelago, as well as for commitments related to the Kyoto Climate Agreement and the Climate Change Agreement under the umbrella of the United Nations, and Japan with this The trend is to reduce 26% of its industrial emissions by 2030, and gradually beyond 2030.

This Saudi-Japanese partnership comes to add chemical economic strength to the basket of Saudi energy products, which Aramco used in partnership with SABIC, the global chemical giant, of which Aramco owns 70%, to find effective and innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which by the end of 2019 reached historic high levels that exceeded 40 giga mt.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, represented by Aramco and SABIC, has taken proactive steps to develop technologies to capture and purify carbon dioxide, preventing it from being released into the atmosphere and polluting it, which is an artificially produced gas, as it has been effectively utilized in the methanol industry and in improving oil extraction processes.

With this first specialized chemical shipment in the world, Saudi Arabia has officially succeeded and won the admiration and appreciation of the world for making a roadmap for the future of carbon emissions and reducing them, and applying it first in a developed country such as Japan, which will use it in electricity production stations, to produce 10% of its need, which is an ideal Saudi solution for Japanese sustainability.

This Saudi achievement comes as part of the many paths Saudi Arabia is launching in Vision 2030 within the framework of the Circular Carbon Economy (CCE), which is a framework in which carbon dioxide emissions are reduced and reused instead of being released into the atmosphere.

Saudi Arabia, which chairs the G20 summit, provides real services to the world, not just selling oil, gas and minerals. Under its young leadership, it is racing against time towards a prosperous Middle East to reduce carbon emissions to less than 50%, despite the fact that its factories emit only a small percentage of the planet less than 1.8% of the total emissions of industrialized countries.