AfrOil: Eni eyes green, blue hydrogen production in North Africa

Representatives of Italy’s Eni met with Egyptian and Algerian officials last week to discuss the prospects for green and blue hydrogen production.

One set of discussions took place on July 7, when Alessandro Puliti, the company’s COO for natural resources, spoke with Toufik Hakkar, the CEO of Algeria’s national oil company (NOC) Sonatrach, in Algiers. During the meeting, Puliti and Hakkar discussed plans for assessing the “technical and commercial feasibility of a pilot project to produce hydrogen using electricity generated from renewable sources (solar and wind),” Eni said in a statement. It also noted that the parties intended to evaluate proposals for using the water extracted during oil production operations as the raw material for the electrolysis process that yields hydrogen.

Then on July 8, Eni representatives were in Egypt to sign an agreement with two state-owned companies, Egyptian Electricity Holding Co. (EEHC) and Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co. (EGAS), on blue and green hydrogen production. According to a separate company statement, this agreement provides for the parties to study the commercial feasibility of using electricity generated from renewable sources to produce green hydrogen. The study will also address the prospects for using electricity generated from natural gas, with the resulting carbon dioxide emissions to be captured and stored in depleted fields, to produce blue hydrogen.