Yara, Japan's Sumitomo Eye Clean Ammonia For Petchem

Japanese petrochemical producer Sumitomo Chemical and Norwegian fertilizer producer Yara will explore using clean ammonia for petrochemical production, as part of efforts to cut their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Sumitomo Chemical and Yara agreed at the end of November to jointly explore using clean ammonia produced by Yara as a raw material for petrochemical production. It includes both green ammonia produced from green hydrogen and blue ammonia produced from fossil fuels but with carbon emissions captured and stored or reused. Green hydrogen is produced by water electrolysis using renewable power.

Sumitomo Chemical currently produces chemical fibers at its Ehime plant in western Japan using imported and domestically produced ammonia.

The firm today revised up its GHG emissions reduction goal to 50pc by 2030 from levels in the April 2013-March 2014 fiscal year compared with 30pc previously. It has also set a target to achieve net zero GHG emissions by 2050. The company has cut its GHG emissions by 22.2pc from 2013-14 to 7.4mn t during 2020-21.

Sumitomo Chemical is separately considering transforming the Ehime plant into an ammonia hub that distributes clean ammonia to industry sectors, making use of existing ammonia storage facilities with capacity of 30,000t.

The company also plans to switch its in-house power generation fuels to clean ammonia in the future, after already shifting to LNG from coal and oil.

Sumitomo Chemical is building an LNG-fired power generation facility at the Ehime plant and a high-efficiency gas turbine at its Chiba plant.