Engie and Equinor to partner for blue hydrogen

Engie (French multinational electric utility company) and Equinor (a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company ) agreed to join forces for exploring a potential site for blue hydrogen plant. Both partners signed an agreement to study producing hydrogen from natural gas in Belgium, the Netherlands and France.

To understand the potential scope for such a project, both companies will start discussions with potential customers and all the key stakeholders, including relevant authorities.

“Equinor and ENGIE are looking to identify opportunities and explore joint collaboration on the technical and commercial development of clean hydrogen projects in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. This includes initiatives within both green and blue hydrogen, potentially also initiatives across the technologies,” Equinor spokesman told H2 Bulletin

“As the project is in a very early stage, no CO2 storage site is decided yet. Our focus at this stage is on permanent offshore storage in the North Sea. It is too early to say anything specific about capacities, costs and markets. This is part of what we are now going to look into together,”  he further told H2 Bulletin.

Both partners shared the views that there have to be large scale blue and green hydrogen capacities to reduce CO2 emission by 2030 significantly. Last month, Engie and Total agreed to build the France largest green hydrogen production plant.

Edouard Neviaski, CEO of Engie Global Energy Management business unit, said that both companies are partnered for over 40 years. The company believes that hydrogen will play a key role in energy conversion, and both renewable hydrogen and low-carbon hydrogen technologies will be needed for a carbon-neutral economy.

Grete Tveit, Equinor’s director of Low Carbon Solutions, said that Equinor aims to be a leading company in the energy transition. The company believes that hydrogen and CCS will be crucial if we are to succeed in the transition.