Oil India to set up green hydrogen plant in Assam
Oil India Ltd, the nation’s second-largest state-owned oil explorer, is setting up a plant to manufacture green hydrogen at its Jorhat oilfield in Assam, the company said in a statement. “To strengthen its bouquet of clean energy offerings”, the company has initiated action for setting up a 100 kW green hydrogen plant at its Pump station-3 in Jorhat, it said. The pilot plant will generate green hydrogen using AEM technology, it said without giving details. “This is a first of its kind project in the country.” Speaking on the occasion of the ‘bhumi pujan’ ceremony of the project, Pankaj Kumar Goswami, Director (Operations) said the hydrogen so generated will be blended with natural gas using the existing infrastructure. Hydrogen being the cleanest form of energy is the latest focus area across the globe to satiate the rising energy needs. Green hydrogen is derived from water electrolysis using renewable energy like solar or wind. Biomass-based hydrogen production technologies also qualify under the green category. The government proposed the National Hydrogen Mission in the Union Budget 2021-22, initiating a hydrogen roadmap for the country.The mission was announced in August this year by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Under the Paris agreement (COP 21), by the year 2030, India is committed to reducing its greenhouse emissions by 33-35 per cent from the 2005 levels. This has necessitated finding alternative sources of cleaner energy.
NYK seals long-term LNG carrier charter with GAIL
Japan’s NYK has signed a multi-year time-charter contract with GAIL (India) for 2021-built 174,000 cm LNG carrier Grace Emilia. The vessel is equipped with a WinGD dual-fuel slow-speed diesel engine and can operate on marine gas oil or boil off gas stored in the cargo tank. “NYK had been in discussions with GAIL for time-charter contract and other LNG-related businesses and considers GAIL as a key player in India, where gas demand is expected to continue to increase due to remarkable economic growth,” NYK said in a statement, “NYK will continue to position India as an important strategic region, and to meet the country’s energy demand, LNG, crude oil, LPG, hydrogen, and renewables will be promoted to address India’s future energy need.
Reliance gets NCLT nod to withdraw oil-to-chemical scheme
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has allowed Reliance Industries to withdraw its proposal to demerge its oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business, which effectively rings down the curtain on a two-year-old saga surrounding the Mukesh Ambani-owned company’s relentless pursuit of an investment deal with Aramco of Saudi Arabia. “We would like to inform that the NCLT, Mumbai bench has vide its order dated December 3, 2021 approved the withdrawal of the O2C scheme pending before the NCLT,” RIL said in a regulatory filing on Saturday. The Ambanis have been in negotiations with Aramco since the middle of 2019 for the purchase of a 20 per cent stake in the O2C business at an enterprise value of $ 75 billion. Talks ran into several hurdles and were finally bogged down by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Speculation about a deal with Aramco were reignited last year but the two sides eventually decided to abandon negotiations apparently after failing to agree on the valuation of the business. On November 27, the oil-to-telecom conglomerate had requested the tribunal to permit withdrawal of its petition at the next date of hearing, December 3, or any other early date that the NCLT found convenient. RIL had said that it along with Reliance O2C Ltd no longer desired to go ahead with the scheme due to “certain commercial considerations”. Last month, both Saudi Aramco and RIL had decided to `re-evaluate’ the latter’s investment in the O2C business. The two sides had signed a non-binding letter of intent in August 2019 to assess the feasibility of Aramco picking up a 20 per cent stake in the O2C business at a deemed valuation of $ 75 billion.