Woodside Petroleum is working with units of Keppel Corp and Osaka Gas Co to study a long-term supply of liquid hydrogen from Western Australia to Singapore and potentially Japan, the companies said on Wednesday.
The study, which is in line with the Singapore Green Plan, will go on until mid-2022, before the companies decide on their next move.
For Woodside, Singapore and Japan would be ideal export destinations for hydrogen from its planned H2Perth Hydrogen facility in Western Australia, while Keppel Data Centres said it is studying the use of hydrogen to power its data centres.
“It is important for us to work collaboratively with potential customers and end users such as Keppel Data Centres, Osaka Gas Singapore, City Energy and City-OG Gas Energy Services to collaboratively build out a sustainable hydrogen supply chain from our proposed H2Perth Project,” Woodside Chief Executive Officer Meg O’Neill said in a statement.
City Energy, owned by Keppel Infrastructure Trust, said it would look into using hydrogen to help cut carbon emissions from its town gas manufacturing processes.
Osaka Gas, which has a partnership with City Energy in Singapore, said it would contribute its know-how from the LNG import business to help develop a hydrogen supply chain between Australia and Singapore.
Also Read:
Oil refiners already produce large volumes of hydrogen for de-sulfurisation in the crude refining process. But they do so by steam reforming of natural gas, which does add to carbon emissions.
There is no doubt that hydrogen will offer us the possibility of lowering our carbon emissions but its large scale utilisation will not happen unless there is a direct support from the government.