Australia’s NH3 Clean Energy advances flagship ammonia project

Australia’s NH3 Clean Energy, formerly Hexagon Energy Materials, has completed the engineering component of its preliminary front-end engineering and design (pre-FEED) work for its flagship WAH2 clean ammonia project.

With production targeted before 2030, The WAH2 aims to supply low-emissions ammonia to the decarbonizing powerhouse economies of the Asia-Pacific, including Japan and South Korea.

As disclosed, the pre-FEED technical work for the project has involved the evaluation of the interrelationships between plant cost, efficiency and emissions profile. Reportedly, a single design basis for FEED has been defined that preserves the flexibility to optimize product price and emissions intensity during operations to meet customer preferences. This flexibility is also said to allow the project to adjust emissions considering the eligibility criteria of any potential government subsidies.

The results of the completed technical work will be combined with pricing from the preliminary commercial agreements, that the company has already entered into, to produce updated pre-FEED financial modelling, NH3 Clean Energy revealed, adding that these components are the basis for the next stage of strategic and customer discussions.

Chairman Charles Whitfield commented: “Completion of Pre-FEED engineering represents a major milestone for the WAH2 Project. It represents a significant de-risking of the project and is the point in the project’s development at which strategic parties had indicated that they would be interested to seriously engage. It also represented the largest component of Pre-FEED expenditure so its completion allows the Company to reduce cash burn.”

To note, the technical work has been completed in collaboration with Petrofac Asset Solutions Australia as the lead engineer and Topsoe as the core technology provider.