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Hydrogen has the potential to decarbonise 21 percent of Petroleum Development Oman’s (PDO) operations by 2050, a top official at the state-owned company said.
Dr Zakiya Al-Azri, PDO’s Corporate R&D Advisor said the company will soon begin a feasibility study to find out how hydrogen can be integrated into the company’s renewable energy system and future renewable plans.
She said there are four main applications where hydrogen can decarbonise PDO’s operations - power and steam generation, heating and gas burning, mobility and hydrocarbon recovery.
Elaborating on each of these pillars, Zakia said hydrogen could progressively decarbonise steam integrated gas turbines over the block 6 area and provide opportunities to replace some turbines with renewables plus storage. She said hydrogen could contribute 40 percent of the storage needs making it an interesting competitor to batteries.
Replacing fuel gas boilers with hydrogen boilers to generate steam can contribute 26 percent carbon reduction and using hydrogen in heaters can contribute 14 percent carbon savings by 2050, she said.
Zakia said hydrogen usage in mobility to power PDO’s massive fleet of heavy-duty vehicles could be an attractive proposition offering around 85 percent emissions reductions beyond 2030.
The company will soon launch a pilot project to test hydrogen usage in its fleet, she said.
“Hydrogen can be used to produce green chemicals like dimethyl ether, e-methanol, and e-fuels and can be used for hydrocarbon recovery. Opportunities for carbon capture exists for using the waste gas stream in PDO’s operations,” she said.
The company sees hydrogen production with carbon capture as a transition enabler towards green hydrogen and both can be used for end applications, she added.
PDO had committed to achieve net zero by 2050 but aspires for 50 percent emissions cuts by 2030, the PDO official said.
(Reporting by Sowmya Sundar; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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