South Korean firms plan Queensland ammonia, H2 exports

: Fertilizers, Hydrogen
22/09/21

A consortium of South Korean firms have set up a venture in Australia's Queensland state to develop a supply chain to ship more than 1mn t/yr of green ammonia from Australia to South Korea in 2032.

The group comprises mining firm Korea Zinc and its Australia-based subsidiary Ark Energy and conglomerates Hanwha Impact and SK Gas. The partners plan to build upon Ark Energy's Collinsville green energy hub, which plans to develop 3,000MW of renewable energy, said Queensland energy minister Mick de Brenni.

Korea Zinc already has a presence in northern Queensland through its 100pc owned Sun Metals zinc refinery in Townsville, which Korea Zinc plans to operate fully on renewable energy by 2040 and on 80pc renewable energy by 2030. The firm set up Ark Energy in 2021 to help the refinery with its energy transition. Ark Energy has set up the SunHQ hydrogen hub powered by a 124MW solar farm that will power the zinc refinery.

The consortium brings together three major firms in South Korea's hydrogen economy that have a forecast demand for more than 2mn t/yr of green ammonia from 2030, said Korea Zinc vice-chairman Yun B Choi. "We look forward to working with our partners to unlock Australia's potential to become a large-scale producer and exporter of green hydrogen and its derivatives including green ammonia," said Choi.

The latest venture follows the signing last year by Korea Zinc with Townsville port about exporting 120,000t of renewable hydrogen to South Korea from the port.

The Queensland government is keen to promote the state as a potential exporter of green hydrogen and green ammonia. The state launched a A$2bn ($1.34bn) fund to finance renewable energy and hydrogen projects given its potential as a significant producer of solar energy.

Queensland has around 28 projects in the planning stage to produce hydrogen and/or ammonia, largely from renewable energy. South Korean and Japanese firms have been the most active foreign investors in Australia-based hydrogen projects, as both countries have limited capacity to produce green hydrogen and both seek pathways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

By Kevin Morrison

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25/07/10

Brazil eyes retaliatory tariffs on US

Rio de Janeiro, 10 July (Argus) — Brazil will consider reciprocal tariffs if US president Donald Trump goes ahead with his threat of a 50pc charge on imports from Brazil, president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said. "Any unilateral tariff increases will be addressed in accordance with Brazil's economic reciprocity law," Lula posted on social media late on Wednesday. He defended Brazil's sovereignty and said the country "will not accept any form of tutelage". He rebutted Trump's claim that the US has a "very unfair trade relationship with Brazil", pointing to its long-running trade surplus. Brazil has run a trade deficit for goods and services with the US adding up to over $400bn over the last 15 years, finance minister Fernando Haddad said in a televised interview. "This is an eminently political decision, because there is no economic rationale in this measure," he said. The US is Brazil's second-largest trading partner behind China, receiving $40.3bn worth of exports in 2024, according to the Brazilian secretary of foreign trade. It is the main market for Brazilian manufactured goods. The national confederation of industries (CNI), a lobby group, called for negotiations with the Trump government "to preserve the countries' historical trade relationship". A group representing the powerful agribusiness lobby in congress, FPA, also called for diplomatic negotiations. The tariffs can "severely hamper production, investments and supply chains between the two countries," US-Brazilian chamber of commerce Amcham said. The tariffs bring uncertainty to the country's oil and gas sector, Brazil's oil chamber IBP said. Crude is Brazil's main export to the US, accounting for $5.8bn last year. "We are cautiously assessing the true impacts on investments and competitiveness on our industry," IBP said. The Brazilian real slumped against the US dollar in the wake of Trump's announcement, dropping to R5.6/$1 on Thursday morning before rallying slightly. A weaker real increases production costs for Brazilian companies who rely on imports. A letter that Trump sent on Wednesday to Lula is one of the 22 that the US leader has sent to his foreign counterparts since 7 July, announcing new tariff rates that the US will charge on imports from those countries. "I don't think that this situation will continue," Haddad said of the "unsustainable" 50pc levy, highlighting Brazil's diplomatic tradition. By Constance Malleret Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Brazil eyes retaliatory tariffs on US

25/07/10

Brazil eyes retaliatory tariffs on US

Rio de Janeiro, 10 July (Argus) — Brazil will consider reciprocal tariffs if US president Donald Trump goes ahead with his threat of a 50pc charge on imports from Brazil, its president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said. "Any unilateral tariff increases will be addressed in accordance with Brazil's economic reciprocity law," Lula posted on social media late on Wednesday. He defended Brazil's sovereignty and said the country "will not accept any form of tutelage". He rebutted Trump's claim that the US has a "very unfair trade relationship with Brazil", pointing to its long-running trade surplus. The US is Brazil's second-largest trading partner behind China, receiving $40.3bn worth of exports in 2024, according to the Brazilian secretary of foreign trade. It is the main market for Brazilian manufactured goods. The national confederation of industries (CNI), a lobby group, called for negotiations with the Trump government "to preserve the countries' historical trade relationship". A group representing the powerful agribusiness lobby in congress, FPA, also called for diplomatic negotiations. A letter that Trump sent on Wednesday to Lula is one of the 22 that the US leader has sent to his foreign counterparts since 7 July, announcing new tariff rates that the US will charge on imports from those countries. By Constance Malleret Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Japan’s Sumitomo to invest $10bn in UK clean energy

25/07/10

Japan’s Sumitomo to invest $10bn in UK clean energy

Tokyo, 10 July (Argus) — Japanese trading firm Sumitomo has agreed to invest a total of £7.5bn ($10.2bn) by 2035 in key clean energy projects in the UK. The agreement was made with the UK's Department for Business and Trade's Office for Investment on 9 July. The £7.5bn total includes investments Sumitomo made before this deal. The investments will be focused on key offshore wind and hydrogen projects. Sumitomo is also actively exploring the commercialisation of next-generation technologies such as fusion energy and energy management with storage solutions, the firm said. Sumitomo did not disclose more details on what projects it will invest in, when requested for comment. Sumitomo is currently involved in a low-carbon hydrogen production project at the Bacton gas terminal in north Norfolk, CO2 storage in the North Sea and the Peak Cluster CO2 shipping project. The trading house has also invested in offshore wind power businesses. Sumitomo chose to partner with the UK because of the government's support for clean energy businesses, said the firm, and it intends to enhance its collaboration with the UK to develop its clean energy portfolio. By Nanami Oki Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Q&A: Arup urges joined-up approach to H2 deployment

25/07/08

Q&A: Arup urges joined-up approach to H2 deployment

Mumbai, 8 July (Argus) — UK-headquartered engineering firm Arup has supported governments around the world with policy, regulatory and infrastructure advisory services across the renewable hydrogen value chain. The firm has also carried out front-end engineering design for projects geared towards producing renewable hydrogen or derivatives. Argus spoke with Arup's India hydrogen lead and vice-president of the Hydrogen Association of India, Sachin Chugh, about the evolving global hydrogen market and the critical gaps that must be addressed to accelerate deployment. Edited highlights follow: How do you assess green hydrogen's development globally? The hydrogen space is fragmented. I would not say it is slow. Production capacities are increasing, scale is getting enhanced and we are seeing larger-sized electrolysers coming on line. The bottlenecks I see are production costs, technology maturity and uncertainty around hydrogen trade protocols, such as the standardisation of products. The recent definitions are not helping a uniform development of the ecosystem globally. Offtake and technology risks are talked about a lot and investors are already pricing them in. But I would like to highlight another risk — co-ordination. We must understand that hydrogen is a secondary molecule. And it has a multi-nodal chain — renewables, electrolyser, transportation, conversion, shipping terminals and final use. There are lot of independent elements influencing the value chain. If we are not linking these individual elements together for optimisation, this brings a lot of risk. At Arup, we have been trying to integrate this value chain and minimise these risks. What is your view on India's plan to export 70pc of the 5mn t/yr of renewable hydrogen that it aims to be producing by 2030? The 70pc figure is coming from the fact that there is a cost differential and limited appetite from local industry to absorb that additional cost in their processes. We're talking about sectors like fertilisers, which are highly subsidised. Even the refining sector is under a lot of pressure because of geopolitical developments. That said, focusing only on exports can be catastrophic for India. If we look at the west, the EU is driving demand for green hydrogen. But when we look at the Middle East, we see more emphasis on low-carbon hydrogen. Competing with them on cost is going to be challenging. Putting all our eggs in one basket can be risky. Exports should act as a catalyst to trigger demand, but the foundation must be domestic demand. We need to identify markets within India that have the appetite to absorb that cost differential. It's about addressing the right pain point in sectors such as oil and gas. The pain point isn't merely the inclusion of hydrogen in the ecosystem, but how to mitigate CO2 emissions. When you marry these two — growing a green hydrogen market and using that hydrogen to mitigate emissions, not just through direct substitution, but by combining CO2 into e-fuels — that's where the opportunity lies. Even blending just 0.1pc of e-fuels — which will naturally be costlier than conventional fuels — can still bring considerable volumes into the ecosystem. Are there challenges for the hydrogen sector that are specific to Asian countries and that differ from the EU or US? The nature of business is completely different in Asia. Here, we have a cost-sensitive market where affordability for the masses is one of the paramount decisions when it comes to energy. A lot of calibration is required when pushing green hydrogen in Asian markets. The real challenge is Asia's aspiration to adopt hydrogen without localisation... I'm not considering China here. If the technology comes from Europe or China, one of the biggest challenges is the lack of real-environment performance. These technologies have been developed in regions with very different grid intermittency, and environmental conditions. We don't know how these technologies will perform here and that introduces risk. On the policy side, Asia lacks inter-regional hydrogen diplomacy. In the EU region, you see common platforms to push the hydrogen economy. In Asia, there is no representation of hydrogen on platforms like the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. What kind of innovations could improve project economics? One area is trying to reduce electrolysers' requirement for 24-7 electricity. The idea here is to develop direct DC-coupled hydrogen microgrids, so that energy storage systems are not required in between. If we can develop something like this, it can reduce costs. Secondly, using artificial intelligence for two key purposes — predictive maintenance of machines and dynamic load shaping. At Arup, we are doing a lot of work in this space. This, along with energy optimisation, could impact up to 15-20pc of the lifecycle costs of hydrogen. We are also trying to address the fact that the engineering world lacks hydrogen-specific references. The current engineering models used are retrofits from the hydrocarbon sector. We're assuming many things based on that experience — using those factors and scaling parameters to design hydrogen plants, which will introduce a lot of engineering risks in the future. Particularly for the Indian ecosystem, there is a need to devise the stage-gate approach in these new energy domains. The mechanism that can move from concept to feasibility in a phased manner is currently missing due to an assumption that the hydrogen and green molecule industry is mature and can be scaled up with the traditional approach. What is your view on the Indian production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes for green hydrogen production and electrolyser manufacturing? We need to understand the fundamental deficiencies of the PLI scheme. It is focused on triggering production, but doesn't cover system-level integration, and it ignores the ecosystem interdependence — things like land, utilities, renewable energy and offtake. This can lead to stranded assets. This is a concern for companies, which is why they are reshaping their strategies and the pace at which they are moving forward. And the scheme doesn't de-risk demand. Lastly, the scheme favours incumbents over innovators. There's a need for traditional energy incumbents to align with innovators, start-ups and incubators to find novel solutions. What else can the government do to support the sector? More than subsidies, what's really needed are predictive sovereign guarantees from the government, meaning price floors that are linked to macro variables in the hydrogen ecosystem — like renewable energy tariffs, ammonia demand, etc. This will make the system self-correcting. The guarantor won't need to overpay, and sovereign guarantees would kick in when there's stress in the market. This would depend on how commodity prices behave in international markets, for products like methanol and ammonia, where we see a lot of price volatility. It's very similar to how crop insurance works in agriculture. There, adjustments are made based on changing weather conditions. In this case, the weather conditions can be replaced by the ecosystem — such as changing renewable energy prices or fluctuations in ammonia and methanol prices. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Jordan’s JPMC sells DAP in $810s/t fob

25/07/08

Jordan’s JPMC sells DAP in $810s/t fob

London, 8 July (Argus) — Jordanian producer JPMC has sold a 45,000-50,000t DAP cargo to a trading firm in the $810s/t fob Aqaba. The cargo will load in late July and will probably be shipped to India. The price is $814/t fob, market sources said, netting forward to the high $820s/t cfr west coast India. JPMC did not confirm the quantity or shipment time and did not give an exact price, but said the price is higher than $814/t fob. No confirmation was forthcoming from the buyer. By Tom Hampson Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

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South Korean firms plan Queensland ammonia, H2 exports

Related news posts

Brazil eyes retaliatory tariffs on US

Brazil eyes retaliatory tariffs on US

Brazil eyes retaliatory tariffs on US

Brazil eyes retaliatory tariffs on US

Japan’s Sumitomo to invest $10bn in UK clean energy

Japan’s Sumitomo to invest $10bn in UK clean energy

Q&A: Arup urges joined-up approach to H2 deployment

Q&A: Arup urges joined-up approach to H2 deployment

Jordan’s JPMC sells DAP in $810s/t fob

Jordan’s JPMC sells DAP in $810s/t fob

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