German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck is in the Middle East on a whirlwind tour, seeking to speed supply agreements for natural gas, green and blue hydrogen.
Germany’s long-term goal is to import up to three million metric tones of hydrogen per year by the end of the decade, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine has accelerated the timeline. Germany’s government is scrambling to replace Russian gas supplies before the conflict’s diplomatic repercussions has an economic consequence.
This week, Habeck traveled to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar with a delegation of executives from German energy and industrial enterprises. In Qatar, the world’s third-largest LNG exporter, Habeck announced that he had achieved an agreement with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to increase natural gas shipments. The emir decided to provide Germany with greater energy assistance than envisaged, Habeck told DW. The deal will take time to materialize due to Northern Europe’s limited LNG import capacity – Germany does not have its own LNG import terminals – but it is a sign of progress.
“While we may use Russian gas this year, we will not require it in the future,” Habeck told DPA.
Habeck signed a long-term agreement with the UAE to supply blue hydrogen, which is produced from natural gas with carbon capture, as well as green hydrogen from solar energy. “Today’s cooperation thus contributes to two goals: it strengthens our climate goals and our energy security,” he said. The UAE will “deliver the first hydrogen to Germany in 2022,” according to Germany’s economic affairs and climate ministry.
Shipping hydrogen from the Persian Gulf to Germany on a large scale may be difficult, as liquefied hydrogen requires specialized cryogenic vessels, and the world’s first trial-size hydrogen carrier has only recently begun operation. A more viable option may be to convert the hydrogen fuel to ammonia, then load the ammonia onto specialized tankers for transport to Europe. At the extreme, the ammonia could be used directly as an energy source.
