Oman launched the second round of auctions of land blocks for green hydrogen projects on Wednesday after wrapping up the first round with a total of five awards worth a combined $30 billion.

The first round, comprising of two land blocks, was launched in November 2022, and completed in June 2023.

Speaking during a live broadcast on Hydrom’s Youtube channel on Wednesday, Oman’s Minister of Energy and Minerals Salim Al Aufi said in Round 2, Hydrom plans to award up to three land blocks in the Dhofar region.

“The registration system will be open tomorrow (Thursday),” he said.

He said the Request for Qualification (RFQ) process would remain open for nearly two and a half months, and the Request for Proposal (RFP) would be likely launched by September 2023.

Al-Aufi said the second round is expected to be closed “latest” by the end of first quarter of 2024.

“We signed two commercial agreements last year with two consortiums outside the auction process. This year we will go there with an auction system.

The Minister said Hydrom has “kickstarted” the discussions with its partners in Oman including the Ministry of Energy and Minerals and the consultants to shape up the infrastructure in Duqm and Salalah areas.

He said: “We will be surveying the routes and looking into what are the most optimum options to bring the total cost of producing hydrogen as low as possible and make the projects that are producing green hydrogen and ammonia in Oman as competitive as they can be.”

Rounds 1 and 2 form part of Phase A auction of land blocks for green hydrogen projects, Hydrom is targeting total production of one million tonnes per annum of green hydrogen by 2030.

(Writing by Senthil Palanisamy; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)