New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Two globally-significant greener ammonia production plants have reached major milestones.
First, state-owned company China Energy Engineering Group started up what it calls the world’s largest green hydrogen/ammonia/methanol plant in late December, according to local media reports.
The $4.2bn Qingqing No 1 facility is located in Songyuan, Jilin Province, north-east China. The facility features 64 electrolysers which generate hydrogen, and 450,000 m3 of hydrogen storage. Ammonia and methanol are produced on site from the stored hydrogen in a second step.
The annual output of phase one will be 45,000 tonnes of hydrogen and 200,000 tonnes of green ammonia and green methanol, which will reduce carbon emissions by 740,000 t/y.
The facility draws power from solar photovoltaic and wind farms. It has begun with 800 MW of new power generation capacity, which is planned to scale up to five times the size in the future.
To deal with the intermittent nature of wind and solar energy generation, the plant has been designed to fluctuate output in sync with available energy supplies, using Big Data and AI tools, according to factory personnel quoted in local media reports.
In addition, Belgian maritime group CMB.TECH has signed an off-take agreement for green ammonia produced there. Also, CMB.TECH will take delivery of 11 ammonia-powered ships next year. Ten Newcastlemax bulkers (210,000 dwt) being built at Qingdao Beihai shipyard and one 1,400 TEU container vessel being built at China Merchants Industry Weihai will be delivered during 2026. The ships will be powered by a dual-fuel diesel-ammonia main engine and carry ammonia as a fuel onboard.
Across the Pacific, Woodside Energy of Australia has reported that the Beaumont New Ammonia (BNA) facility, located in south-east Texas, US, has produced first ammonia following the completion of systems testing, representing the first phase of operations commissioning of the facility. Commercial production of conventional [fossil] ammonia is expected to begin in early 2026, and lower-carbon ammonia in the second half of the year.
The company added: ‘Demand for lower-carbon ammonia continues to develop globally, with strong interest from customers in Europe and Asia as they pursue energy security and decarbonisation objectives.’
Formerly the OCI Clean Ammonia project, Woodside acquired the project in September 2024 and renamed to Beaumont New Ammonia Project.
Production of lower-carbon ammonia is conditional on supply of carbon-abated hydrogen and ExxonMobil’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility becoming operational.
BNA has a production capacity of 1.1mn t/y and is designed to support growing demand for ammonia, lower-carbon ammonia and hydrogen-adjacent products. Once operational, BNA has the potential to approximately double US ammonia exports, according to a 2025 market assessment by Straits Research.
