OCP Group: Green Hydrogen, Ammonia is the Future of Energy

Rabat – Morocco’s phosphate and fertilizer giant OCP Group reaffirmed its commitment to a ‘green’ future by using renewable energies such as green hydrogen and green ammonia to reduce the fertilizer industry’s dependence on oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels.

Speaking at the EU-Africa Business Summit on Thursday, OCP’s Executive Director Sustainability & Green Industrial Development Hanane Mourchid stressed that ammonia represents “an important raw material for the company and accounts for the major part of its CO2 footprint.”

As several countries are currently seeking to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, Mourchid noted that hydrogen and ammonia offer ambitious opportunities to provide low carbon energy while helping Africa reach the target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

With the ambition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, the OCP representative pointed out that “green hydrogen will be a vector to produce green ammonia and decarbonize our raw material consumption.”

The OCP Group teamed up earlier this year with Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) and oil industry company SHELL to launch a project that focuses on using green hydrogen, rather than oil and gas, to produce ammonia.

Morocco is a regional and global leader in the realm of renewable energy. The country pledged this year to meet 80% of its energy needs with renewable energy sources by 2050.

“In Morocco, there are big competitive advantages and opportunities, because we have enough solar and wind energy available, which makes the energy sector efficient enough to produce green hydrogen and ammonia at a very low cost,” Mourchid added.

OCP covered 89% of its energy needs with renewables in 2020 and aims to reach 100% in 2030.

To ensure the transition to zero-net emissions, Mourchid highlighted the group’s ambitions to decarbonize the maritime and shipping sector while considering ammonia as a potential marine fuel source.

With energy acting as the key to green development, the expert further pointed to the need to boost investments in research and development (R&D) as well as innovation and technologies.

To accelerate the energy transition, Mourchid insisted on working on “regulatory frameworks that are global to help set a dialogue between regions that are bringing together their own advantages to make synergies.”

Although Africa possesses the ability to transition to clean energy, low consumption of electricity, high cost, and low reliability are still major challenges for the region.

The executive director warned that there is a noticeable disparity in access to electricity in the continent and that the cost is likely to exceed two or three times the price in European countries.

Morocco is among a short list of three African countries with complete access to electricity as of 2022, according to a recent report published by Energy Capital & Power.

Meanwhile, the access rate to energy is estimated to be between 30% and 50% in the continent, she said, emphasizing that the rate is below 5% in some rural areas and that the majority of African countries depend on the import of electrical energy.

“Priority should be given to the electrification of Africa, a must step to achieve a ‘green’ world,” Mourchid added, emphasizing that, “many countries have potential in renewable energy but need external help and support to further develop it.”