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Air Products announces plans to build $4.5-billion blue-hydrogen plant in Louisiana

| By Mary Bailey

Air Products (Lehigh Valley, Pa.) will build, own and operate a $4.5-billion clean-energ megaproject, which will produce over 750 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) of blue hydrogen in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. “Blue” products are produced utilizing hydrocarbons as a feedstock, with the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the production process captured for permanent sequestration. The project will create 170 permanent jobs with a total annual payroll of $15.9 million and more than 2,000 construction jobs over three years. It represents Air Products’ largest-ever investment in the U.S.

A portion of the blue hydrogen will be compressed and supplied to customers by Air Products’ extensive U.S. Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline network. The network is the largest hydrogen pipeline system in the world, stretching more than 700-miles from Galveston Bay in Texas to New Orleans, Louisiana. Today, this vast U.S. Gulf Coast pipeline network can supply customers with more than 1.6 billion cubic feet of hydrogen per day from approximately 25 production facilities, including blue hydrogen from Air Products’ Port Arthur, Texas facility. The Port Arthur facility has captured approximately one million tons of CO2 annually since 2013, with the CO2 transported via pipeline and utilized for enhanced oil recovery operations. 

The balance of the blue hydrogen from the new Ascension Parish facility will be used to make blue ammonia that will be transported around the world and converted back to blue hydrogen for transportation and other markets.

The innovative megaproject will also feature the world’s largest instance of CO2 capture for permanent sequestration and produce only environmentally friendly blue products. The megaproject is expected to be operational in 2026.