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).

It was reported that, on 6 November 2022, HYDROM opened a first public bid round (of six plots of land) on which developers would build fully integrated green hydrogen projects. A further two to four blocks in the coastal city of Salalah were expected to be put on offer in mid-2023, with the successful bidders expected to be announced by December 2023.

In March 2023, the Oman News Agency reported that HYDROM had signed six term-sheet agreements (under Oman’s Green Hydrogen Legacy Initiatives) 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: the first award being through the Phase A Round 1 public auction process, and the other two awards following the earlier signing of commercial term sheets. The awards are reported as yielding a total production capacity of half a million tonnes of green hydrogen per annum from more than 12 GW of installed renewable energy capacity at the three sites, each covering an area of 320 square kilometres in the Al Wusta Governorate.

In the latter part of June 2023, the Oman News Agency reported the signing of two new agreements awarding green hydrogen projects in Oman. The launching of the second bid round of the HYDROM green hydrogen auction process was also announced, in which HYDROM plans to award up to three land blocks in the Dhofar region by the end of the first quarter of 2024.

 

Updated: August 2023