- The project’s potential production capacity is 2 million tonnes of green hydrogen per annum.
- BP aims for a sharp increase in hydrogen production.
BP signed an agreement with Mauritania on Tuesday to explore ways to develop green hydrogen on a large scale. The agreement, which was signed by Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani and BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney on the sidelines of the COP27 climate talks in the Egyptian coastal resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, aims to build on BP’s presence in a country where it is already developing a large liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility. However, It does not include the project’s time frame or targets. The project has a potential production capacity of about 30 GW for the production of 2 million tonnes per annum of green hydrogen.
BP plans to study the feasibility of building onshore wind and solar farms that are required to produce green hydrogen, which is produced by electrolysis using renewable energy. The study will cover the availability and quality of wind and solar resources in large areas northwest of Mauritania.
BP’s head of hydrogen, Felipe Arbelaez, said, “This is really the first phase of what we expect to be a pretty long-term development programme in Mauritania. The Later phases of this project would focus on building electrolysis and then hydrogen export infrastructure”. Under Looney’s plans to shift BP from Oil and gas in the coming decades, BP aims for a sharp increase in hydrogen production.