As it investigates the use of hydrogen at its Yarwun alumina refinery in Gladstone, Sumitomo Corporation has finished its Front End Engineering Design (FEED) studies for a green hydrogen production plant located at Gladstone, Queensland, with Rio Tinto as a key prospective offtake partner.
Early in 2021, the project proponent and JGC Holdings Corporation (a member of the JGC Group) signed a contract for the latter to carry out FEED studies for a hydrogen-related project envisioned for Gladstone, Queensland. The FEED studies were finished at the beginning of 2022.
There is potential to scale up production when the initial 250–300 tonnes of hydrogen are produced annually. Using electricity generated from renewable sources, electrolysis will be used to produce hydrogen.
An analysis of the viability of using clean hydrogen to partially decarbonize alumina refining at Rio Tinto’s Gladstone plant, which owns and manages the Yarwun alumina refinery, has been done. The Yarwun refinery’s potential use of renewables-based hydrogen to substitute natural gas in the calcination process was examined in the feasibility study, which was funded by an ARENA grant of AUD$580,000.
Rio Tinto and Sumitomo Corporation established cooperation in August 2021 to investigate the development of a hydrogen pilot plant at Rio Tinto’s Yarwun alumina refinery and investigate hydrogen’s possible usage in the refinery.
