Sinopec to spend $4.6 bn on hydrogen energy

Green hydrogen projects

China’s Sinopec plans to spend 30 billion yuan ($4.6 billion) on hydrogen energy by 2025 as the state oil and gas major plans to producing natural gas and hydrogen as part of becoming a carbon-neutral energy provider by 2050.

Asia’s biggest oil refiner said it plans to become China’s largest company to produce hydrogen for use as a transportation fuel, targeting annual capacity of 200,000 tons of hydrogen refuelling by 2025.

“Sinopec will expand into making hydrogen from renewable energy, and zero in on hydrogen for transportation fuel and using green hydrogen for refining,” Sinopec acting Chairman Ma Yongsheng said in a statement.

Sinopec aims to produce more than 1 million tons of green hydrogen from renewable energy sources between 2021 and 2025, as well as add 400 megawatts of solar power generation capacity for supplying electricity to charge vehicles.

Sinopec has so far built 20 hydrogen filling stations, with another 60 under construction or in the planning and approval stage.

Sinopec produces about 3 million tons per year of hydrogen from non-renewable energy sources that is mainly used in oil refinery and petrochemical processes.

Sinopec on Sunday reported first-half net profit of $6.05 billion, on rebounding oil and gas prices as well as steady domestic fuel demand.

Sinopec plans to boost gas output in the second half of 2021 by 13.5 percent from a year earlier, compared with 13.7 percent growth in the first six months.

Sinopec maximized its refinery operations in the first half, pushing throughput to 126.11 million tons of oil, or about 5.1 million barrels per day, up 13.7 percent from a year earlier when demand was curtailed by the outbreak of COVID-19.

Domestic fuel sales in the period rose by 8.1 percent on strong demand for gasoline and other light fuels such as naphtha used as petrochemical feedstocks.

Refinery throughput in the second half of the year is forecast to be flat to the first-half and year-earlier periods, remaining at about 126 million tonnes.

Its trading arm Unipec posted a profit of 3.5 billion yuan during the period, the firm said, without giving a comparison.