It flags Australia, the Middle East, Russia and the US as hydrogen exporters, while China and the rest of Northeast Asia and Europe will import. 

 

Australia and the Middle East lead in terms of green hydrogen projects proposed, sharing 60% of the global total. There has been a 50-fold increase in green hydrogen project announcements in the past year. 

 

This comes as Santos and Fortescue Future Industries engage in a war of words over the value of blue versus green hydrogen. 

 

Santos is ‘exploring' blue hydrogen options as part of its wider carbon capture and storage project proposed for the Cooper Basin. Miner FMG's clean energy arm has made a series of announcements for large-scale green hydrogen projects, most recently in Gladstone, Queensland.  

 

FMG chair and founder Dr Andrew Forrest first lashed out at blue hydrogen in June, timing his spray for the first day of Australia's largest petroleum conference. He maintains it is simply a way for oil and gas producers to buy some time; Santos says blue hydrogen is far cheaper than green. 

 

Santos CEO KevinGallagher made sure to tell the assembled press that  Forrest's opinions tended to change with his interests, then explained the mechanics of his two planned CCS projects, which have hydrogen potential. 

 

Gallagher told the SEAOC conference in Darwin yesterday Moomba hydrogen would be magnitudes cheaper than that produced at Port Kembla, New South Wales, another of Forrest's plans. 

 

Wood Mackenize, meanwhile, sees a place for both in a transition that is gaining ground fast. 

 

"Portraying this as an either-or choice is an over-simplification," vice chairman Gavin Thompson said. 

 

"The reality is that the world needs both to achieve the required pace of global decarbonisation. 

 

"Blue hydrogen production has a scalability advantage over green hydrogen at present and can already be developed in the requisite volumes, though lead times are longer. 

 

"Most proposed projects are currently a combination of the two. A blue hydrogen exporter in Australia or the Middle East, for instance, could establish a market position while expanding into green hydrogen as costs decline over time and capacity becomes available. Producers could thus build out their low-carbon hydrogen supply chains as green hydrogen becomes more competitive over time." 

 

This has been not just oil and gas companies' argument -- it is one Woodside makes frequently also -- but that of former chief scientist in Australia Dr Alan Finkel, who has been making the same point since 2019 when he released a major study on Australia's possible place in a huge new global hydrogen economy. 

 

Woodside this week announced a large-scale blue and green hydrogen development project on Perth's southern outskirts. 

 

"Project developers, lenders and buyers will be drawn to locations with a proven track record of exporting natural resources, suitable conditions for low-cost renewable electricity and the potential for large-scale carbon capture," the consultancy believes.

 

Australia's solar resources stand it in good stead as does its proximity to North Asian markets where demand will be strong. 

 

Whatever the colour, the opportunity is there. 

 

WoodMac believes the greatest disruption to the energy trade sector since the rise of OPEC is coming, and while electricity and decarbonisation efforts take off, hydrogen has unique potential as a commodity. 

 

"Low-carbon hydrogen and its derivatives could account for around a third of the seaborne energy trade in a net zero 2050 world," research director Prakash Sharma said. 

 

"Australia, in particular, stands out from the crowd in its track record of exporting a diverse set of natural resources and minerals, sheer physical scale, solar and wind resources and substantial potential for large-scale CCS." 

 

Demand for hydrogen will rise between two to six-fold under its Energy Transition Outlook and Accelerated Energy Transition scenarios, respectively. Under a 1.5C warming scenario low-carbon hydrogen demand  (which does not release CO2 into the atmosphere via its creation) could be as much as 530 million tonnes and 150MMt of that traded on the seaborne market. 

 

Low-carbon hydrogen import demand from Northeast Asia and Europe could account for about 80MMt, equivalent to 55% of seaborne hydrogen trade, and 23MMt (16% of total seaborne energy trade), respectively, it found. 

 

With such a large market there could even just be space for both Santos' Kevin Gallagher and Dr Forrest, maybe.