Oman
Country: Oman
Document type: Policy Announcement
Title: Net Zero Emissions in 2050 and Hydrogen Strategy (official reporting – Foreign Ministry of Oman)
Released: October 2022
Summary Points:
In October 2022, the Sultanate of Oman announced a new climate commitment and its green hydrogen strategy during a press conference held in Muscat.
Oman committed to reaching Net Zero Emissions in 2050, and to lead its transition to this goal announced the creation of the Oman Sustainability Centre. The Centre will be the leading body undertaking the supervision, follow-up plans and programmes of carbon neutrality.
Speaking at the press conference, the Energy Minister noted that green hydrogen is a key pillar offering the opportunity for Oman to pursue its decarbonisation, economic and energy security objectives. Oman has set a goal to become one of the largest green hydrogen producers and exporters globally, targeting production of one million tons annually by 2030.
Over the course of 2022, the Ministry of Energy and Minerals developed a green hydrogen strategy and defined the structure of the green hydrogen sector. To lead the country’s green hydrogen strategy, the government has established Hydrom Oman (‘Hydrom’), a fully owned autonomous subsidiary of Energy Development Oman SAOC (EDO).
Regulated by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Hydrom’s mandate includes the delineation of Government-owned land areas and the structuring of associated large-scale green hydrogen projects. Its mandate also includes managing the process of allocating land to developers as well as facilitating the development of common infrastructure and connected ecosystem industries and hubs in close collaboration with the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (OPAZ).
In December 2022, Hydrom released the Request for Proposals to qualified applicants for the first round of its public auction process (launched in November 2022) to award large-scale integrated green hydrogen projects to developers.
In March 2023, the Oman News Agency reported that Hydrom had signed six term-sheet agreements (under Oman’s Green Hydrogen Legacy Initiatives and which pre-date establishment of the regulatory framework for hydrogen) with several developers to invest in green hydrogen projects in the Sultanate of Oman. The production capacity of these projects is reported as reaching 15 GW of electricity, built on an area of approximately 1,500 square kilometres in the governorates of Al Wusta and Dhofar.
At the beginning of June 2023, the Oman News Agency reported that Hydrom had signed three agreements granting the first green hydrogen blocks in the Sultanate of Oman:
- One award is provided through the Round 1 public auction process launched in November 2022.
- The other two awards to Legacy Initiative projects follow from the earlier signing of commercial term sheets in March 2023.
The awards are reported as yielding a total production capacity of half a million tons of hydrogen per annum.
In the latter part of June 2023, the Oman News Agency reported the signing of two new agreements awarding green hydrogen projects in Oman:
- One award is provided through the Round 1 public auction process launched in November 2022.
- The other award to a Legacy Initiative project follows from the earlier signing of commercial term sheets in March 2023.
The awards yield an expected total hydrogen production capacity of 250,000 tons per annum.
Along with the above two awards, the launching of the second bid round of the Hydrom green hydrogen auction process was also announced.
In December 2023, media reports indicated that Hydrom had awarded a land block to one of the Legacy Initiative projects that signed commercial term sheets in March 2023 (with an expected production of over 175,000 tons of hydrogen).
In April 2024, the Oman News Agency reported that Hydrom had signed two new green hydrogen projects in Dhofar. The signings follow the successful completion of Hydrom’s second round of auctions. The report notes that the two projects would have the potential to produce around 378,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per annum.
Updated: May 2024