Namibian firm plans large-scale ammonia plant in sub-Saharan Africa

Namibian green hydrogen producer Hyphen Hydrogen Energy (Hyphen) is planning to build a 2 million mt/year green ammonia plant in Namibia.

PHOTO: Project site for green hydrogen and ammonia production in Namibia. Hyphen Hydrogen Energy

Hyphen intends to produce 1 million mt/year of green ammonia by 2027 from the upcoming plant and scale its production capacity to 2 million mt/year by 2029. Approximately 350,000 mt/year of green hydrogen will be used to produce green ammonia.

The green ammonia will be supplied to “regional and global markets”, the company asserted.

This project is estimated to require a capital investment of $10 billion, which will be financed by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).

“The Southern Africa region has a crucial role to play in the global green hydrogen race, not only through the leverage of the region's renewable resource, but in the region's participation in the financing of the energy transition,” said Marco Raffinetti, chief executive of Hyphen Hydrogen Energy.

Namibia’s “dynamic” green hydrogen sector has the potential to become a “beacon of sustainable progress not only for Namibia, but for the entire Southern African region,” Catherine Koffman, group executive project preparation at DBSA said.

In June this year, the Port of Rotterdam Authority and the Namibian Ports Authority agreed to become knowledge partners in the Hyphen project.

Shipping experts see the industry's gradual shift to greener fuels as a boon for developing nations, which have abundant land and renewable energy resources. This will enable developing countries to produce green hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels at a lower cost and on a larger scale than developed countries.

Commodity trading company Trafigura pointed out earlier this year that sub-Saharan Africa and other developing economies in the Global South were well-positioned to produce e-fuels at lower prices.

Trafigura’s whitepaper forecast that if green hydrogen could be produced at $2/kg in the Global South countries, the estimated cost of e-fuels produced with this green hydrogen as an input should be around $750/mt. This was compared to e-fuels production cost estimates of $1,200-1,500/mt in Europe, where high renewable electricity prices push up overall production costs.

By Konica Bhatt

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