Argus Hydrogen and Future Fuels

The service covers global hydrogen and clean fuels markets, including:

• Green (no-carbon), grey, blue and coal-gasification hydrogen production costs.
• Ammonia, including low-carbon ammonia benchmarks for Northeast Asia and Northwest Europe.
• E-SAF and e-methanol production costs.
• Synthetic natural gas and direct reduced iron (DRI) steelmaking.

 

Coverage spans key production locations across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific.

Argus Hydrogen and Future Fuels is a price reporting and data service providing modelled production costs, market news, analysis and databases for the global hydrogen, ammonia, e-SAF and clean fuels markets. It delivers transparent, comparable cost data across all major production technologies and locations, alongside policy intelligence, offtake data and forward cost projections.

Costs are calculated and published electronically each Tuesday. They appear in the weekly digital publication and on the Argus Direct^® platform. Where daily feedstock prices are used, the average of prices available since the previous publication is applied.

The service is accessible through:

• Argus Direct^® — providing real-time cost data, customised dashboards, news and analysis.
• A weekly PDF report — delivering a consolidated summary of costs, news and market developments.
• Data feeds — enabling direct integration of structured cost data into internal systems and models.
  
   

The service publishes 800+ mass-balanced production costs across the following routes:

• Green (no-carbon) — alkaline electrolyser technology using renewable electricity or grid-connected power purchase agreements.
• Grey (baseline) — steam methane reforming (SMR) and autothermal reforming (ATR) without carbon capture.
• Blue (low-carbon) — SMR and ATR with carbon capture and storage (CCS), including retrofit CCS on existing plants.
• Blue (coal gasification) — coal gasification with CCS.

 

For each technology and location, two cost sets are published — one including capex and one excluding it.

Argus publishes freight and carbon-inclusive low-carbon ammonia benchmarks for two key import locations:

• Northeast Asia (JKLAB) — covering Japan and South Korea.
• Northwest Europe (EULAB) — covering delivered costs into Europe.

 

These benchmarks represent the all-in delivered cost of low-carbon ammonia and are designed for direct referencing in long-term offtake contracts.

The service includes structured databases covering:

• Tender details and cross-border offtake agreements for low-carbon hydrogen and derivatives.
• Electrolyser manufacturing capacity and orders.
• Planned production capacity for e-methanol, e-SAF and synthetic natural gas.
• Global hydrogen subsidy auction trackers and country-level production targets.
• Planned infrastructure including DRI steelmaking plants, ammonia cracking facilities and LOHC transport plans.
  
   

Argus delivers market-leading news and analysis covering:

• Industrial-scale policy, technology and corporate developments across the hydrogen sector.
• Decarbonisation strategies, offtake negotiations and production capacity updates.
• Weekly round-up editions consolidating the most important global developments.
• Access to specialist reporters and searchable news archives for in-depth market context.

Several key factors influence the price of hydrogen, including production method, feedstock cost, energy source, and scale of production. Green hydrogen, produced using renewable energy through electrolysis, tends to have higher costs due to expensive renewable infrastructure but benefits from sustainability credentials. Blue hydrogen, derived from natural gas with carbon capture and storage (CCS), has costs linked to natural gas prices and CCS technology efficiency. Grey hydrogen, made from fossil fuels without CCS, generally offers the lowest immediate production cost but lacks environmental benefits.

Other factors affecting hydrogen price include transportation and storage costs, technology maturity, government policies or subsidies promoting clean energy, and market demand fluctuations. Advances in electrolyzer efficiency and renewable energy availability can reduce green hydrogen costs over time, making it increasingly competitive.