<article><p class="lead">BP's approach to low-carbon hydrogen will start by focusing on decarbonising consumption at its own refineries, the company's senior vice-president for hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS), Felipe Arbelaez, said today.</p><p>BP's refineries consume around 500,000 t/yr of hydrogen globally, providing a "key anchor" for low-carbon hydrogen demand, Arbelaez told delegates at the <i>World Hydrogen Congress </i>in Rotterdam. In Europe, the focus for decarbonising refineries' consumption will be on green hydrogen — produced by water electrolysis using renewable power — while in the US there will be more of an emphasis on blue hydrogen, which is made from natural gas with CCS, Arbelaez said.</p><p>Later, BP will look to supply hydrogen to other industrial consumers in the vicinity of its own refineries. This approach could be taken in places such as Valencia, Spain, and the UK's Teesside, according to Arbelaez. Then BP aims to bring CCS to industrial hubs where hydrogen is produced, he said. Besides Teesside, BP is exploring CCS opportunities in the US Gulf Coast and US Midcontinent.</p><p>A fourth pillar of BP's strategy is to position itself as a "leading operator in big export-hub locations", Arbelaez said. BP in June <a href="https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2341341">bought a 40.5pc stake</a> in the Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH) green hydrogen project in Western Australia. The $36bn AREH aims to produce 1.6mn t/yr of green hydrogen from 26GW of renewable power, utilising up to 12GW of electrolyser capacity. </p><p>BP is looking at other opportunities globally, as it seeks to capitalise on its presence in places such as the Middle East, Mauritania and north Africa, Arbelaez said. He said Latin America is another area of interest.</p><p class="bylines">By Aidan Lea</p></article>
