Ocior Energy moves ahead with green hydrogen plans: India’s Ocior Energy has inked preliminary contracts with the government to set up a USD 4 bn green hydrogen plant in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), Yehia El Wathek Bellah, head of the Trade Ministry’s Commercial Representation Authority, told Enterprise. The land for the project has already been allocated, El Wathek Bellah added.

That adds the missing puzzle piece to news from earlier this week: Ocior Energy was the unnamed foreign company that cabinet on Tuesday said had made an offer to establish a green hydrogen plant in the country, El Wathek Bellah told us. The plant would be powered by 15 GW of solar energy and export USD 1 bn (400k tons) of green hydrogen annually, all of it to Europe, the cabinet statement reads.

The timeline: The final contract for the project will be inked within months and execution will take around five to six years, El Wathek Bellah said. The company will invest around USD 4 bn in total to build the project.

This isn’t the first we’re hearing of the plant: Ocior Energy was among the seven companies and consortiums that in December inked MoUs with the government to conduct feasibility studies on projects to produce green hydrogen and its derivatives.

More where that came from? Among the companies expected to sign investment agreements with Egypt in the near future are India’s ACME, Saudi IT firm STME, Turkey’s KOC Holding, and Ziraat Bank, El Wathek Bellah added.

REMEMBER- Egypt wants to capitalize on the growing global interest in green hydrogen as a low-carbon energy source by establishing itself as one of the region’s leading suppliers. The government signed nine framework agreements for green hydrogen plants worth USD 83 bn on the sidelines of last year’s COP27 climate summit and has at least two more agreements in the works. Ministers in May approved a package of incentives aimed at stimulating the nascent industry and increasing FX inflows.

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