The head of Adnoc’s low-carbon ammonia unit is “confident” that ExxonMobil’s planned blue hydrogen facility in Baytown, Texas will win tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) despite the re-election of Donald Trump as the next US president.
The project will produce up to one billion cubic feet of blue hydrogen daily and more than one million tonnes of low-carbon ammonia annually once it becomes operational in 2029. Nearly all of the carbon dioxide produced during the process will be captured and stored.
Two key tax credits from the IRA, the 45V and 45Q, are essential for projects producing blue hydrogen. These credits incentivise projects that produce hydrogen from fossil fuels using carbon capture and storage.
“There's actually direct pay from the US government for the first five years, [and] then it becomes tax credits, so it's actually very lucrative,” Ahmed El Hoshy, chief executive of Fertiglobe, told The National.
“Because of the amount of carbon-dioxide we [will be] abating in partnership with Exxon, it's getting a lot of support from the IRA. With the elections last week, there's a big focus on what happens to the IRA [next].”
Adnoc, which increased its share in Fertiglobe to 86.2 per cent last month, will transfer its shareholding in all current and future low-carbon ammonia projects to the company, and this includes a 35 per cent stake in the Baytown project.
ExxonMobil, the biggest stakeholder, wants to ensure that the project qualifies for the 45V tax credit. However, the specific criteria for qualifying for the credit has been a contentious issue for blue hydrogen producers.
While green hydrogen – produced using renewable electricity – meets qualifications in a more straightforward manner, blue hydrogen involves more complex carbon footprint calculations.
The final investment decision for the project, expected in 2025, is contingent on whether the project qualifies for the tax credits, Mr El Hoshy said.
“We're waiting for either this administration or the next administration to clarify where we qualify in terms of those credits," he said.
“We see that … [there’s] bipartisan support towards this element of the IRA [and] this [project] is focused on advancing very clean production of molecules, so we do feel confident about [being eligible].”
The IRA, a landmark climate law passed by the Biden administration in 2022, pledged billions of dollars in new spending and tax breaks to boost clean energy and electric vehicle ownership.
Earlier in his presidential campaign, Mr Trump pledged to revoke any unused funds under the IRA.
Export markets
The ammonia production will primarily be for export markets, including the US Gulf Coast, Europe and Asia, Mr El Hoshy said.
He said the low-carbon ammonia produced by the plant would be favoured by buyers in Europe, with carbon tariffs set to take effect in 2026.
The EU will fully implement the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which seeks to protect European companies that pay for their emissions under the EU's trading system from unfair competition, will impose a carbon price on certain goods imported into the bloc.
The regulation currently focuses on carbon-intensive goods such as cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen products.
“The effect of the carbon-dioxide pricing will continue to get higher and higher towards the end of the decade and through the next decade,” Mr El Hoshy said. "So, that definitely puts us an advantage over normal kind of non-abated products."
He said that, in addition to capturing carbon emissions generated from operations, the plant can reduce its scope 2 emissions – those associated with electricity consumption – by using power sourced from renewable energy.
“Texas is one of the biggest producers of wind and solar in the US, so we can get renewable electricity to take our emissions there basically to zero,” Mr El Hoshy said.
Jetour T1 specs
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Aston Martin Rapide AMR
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Transmission: Touchtronic III eight-speed automatic
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Marwan Lutfi says the core fundamentals that drive better payment behaviour and can improve your credit score are:
1. Make sure you make your payments on time;
2. Limit the number of products you borrow on: the more loans and credit cards you have, the more it will affect your credit score;
3. Don't max out all your debts: how much you maximise those credit facilities will have an impact. If you have five credit cards and utilise 90 per cent of that credit, it will negatively affect your score.
Plastic tipping point
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Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
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Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
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It Was Just an Accident
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Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
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Sector: transport
Size: 450 employees
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The flights
Whether you trek after mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda or the Congo, the most convenient international airport is in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali. There are direct flights from Dubai a couple of days a week with RwandAir. Otherwise, an indirect route is available via Nairobi with Kenya Airways. Flydubai flies to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, via Entebbe in Uganda. Expect to pay from US$350 (Dh1,286) return, including taxes.
The tours
Superb ape-watching tours that take in all three gorilla countries mentioned above are run by Natural World Safaris. In September, the company will be operating a unique Ugandan ape safari guided by well-known primatologist Ben Garrod.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, local operator Kivu Travel can organise pretty much any kind of safari throughout the Virunga National Park and elsewhere in eastern Congo.
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Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
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