To create the world's largest exporter of blue hydrogen! Saudi Arabia will use natural gas fields to produce blue hydrogen on a large scale

As the world moves towards carbon neutrality, crude oil exporter Saudi Arabia is also accelerating its transformation. Saudi Arabia said it would use one of the world's largest natural gas projects to produce blue hydrogen and plans to increase exports of blue hydrogen, a fuel critical to the transformation of green energy, in the future.

Abdulaziz Ben Salman (Abdulaziz bin Salman), Saudi Arabia's energy minister, said a large portion of the $110 billion Jafurah natural gas project would be used to produce blue hydrogen, which is produced by converting natural gas and capturing carbon dioxide emissions.

"We are the biggest adventurers in terms of blue hydrogen." "We bet on blue hydrogen," Salman said at a climate conference in Riyadh on Sunday. We have a great natural gas base in Jafurah and we will use it to produce blue hydrogen. "

Earlier this year, Saudi Aramco said it planned to spend $110 billion over the next few years to develop the Jafurah gas field, which contains an estimated 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The latest move highlights Saudi Arabia's abandonment of plans to become an exporter of liquefied natural gas, widely seen as a cleaner fuel than oil and coal, but some governments say they want to phase out liquefied natural gas.

To build the world's largest exporter of green and blue hydrogen

According to statistical estimates, the hydrogen market almost does not exist at present, but if producers can reduce costs, the market value will reach about $700 billion per year by 2050. Saudi Aramco said large-scale blue hydrogen exports could begin after 2030.

In addition to blue hydrogen, Saudi Arabia plans to sell green hydrogen, which is produced from renewable energy sources (usually solar and wind) and produces no carbon emissions.

According to a report released by the International Renewable Energy Agency in December last year, the current price of green hydrogen is two to three times that of blue hydrogen, and according to professional estimates, green hydrogen currently consumes more electricity, so blue hydrogen is generally believed to create the basis for the large-scale use of green hydrogen in the future.

Salman also said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia has the ability to produce the cheapest green hydrogen in the world. He said at the end of last year that Saudi Arabia wanted to be the world's largest exporter of the two types of hydrogen.

It is understood that the Saudi government will also increase the supply of natural gas to the local market, with the goal of stopping the use of oil in its power plants by 2030, when natural gas will power half of Electroweb. Solar and wind energy will fill the rest of their energy mix.