TotalEnergies and industrial gases company Air Liquide are working together to produce low-carbon hydrogen at the French energy firm’s Grandpuits oil platform.

Air Liquide will invest more than €130mn ($133mn) in the construction and operation of a new unit producing 20,000t/yr of hydrogen at the platform. This unit will use residual biogas from the Grandpuits biorefinery and feed it into a steam methane reformer (SMR) to make hydrogen, displacing natural gas normally used in the process.

The unit will also capture 110,000t/yr of CO₂ from the SMR process for reuse in food and industrial applications.

TotalEnergies will then buy the hydrogen to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) under a long-term contract. The hydrogen could also be used to support sustainable mobility in the Ile-de-France region.

“This innovative project makes full use of the conversion of the Grandpuits refinery into a zero-crude platform” Pinatel, TotalEnergies

“By recycling the biogas produced by the biorefinery into renewable hydrogen, this innovative project makes full use of the conversion of the Grandpuits refinery into a zero-crude platform harnessing the potential of biomass, especially in the production of SAF,” says Bernard Pinatel, president of refining and chemicals at TotalEnergies.

These innovations will prevent emissions amounting to 150,000t/yr of CO₂ compared with current processes.

Together again

The two firms are already collaborating on the Normand’Hy project, where Air Liquide is investing in a carbon-capture unit at TotalEnergies’ 255t/d SMR facility and taking over operations under a long-term contract with the French major.

Air Liquide, Austrian chemicals company Borealis, ExxonMobil-owned Esso, TotalEnergies and fertiliser manufacturer Yara International have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure in Normandy with the aim of reducing emissions by up to 3mn t/yr by 2030. Captured emissions from the SMR facility will be fed into this infrastructure.

The firms will operate a CCS service model to help local industrial units to decarbonise, reducing the region’s emissions by 700,000t/yr CO₂.

Air Liquide CFO Jerome Pelletan says the economics of the wider CCS project will work without government subsidies.

---

Author: Tom Young