Essar mulls to invest ₹30,000 crore in green hydrogen plant in Gujarat over the next four years

Indian multinational Essar Group mulls to invest ₹30,000 crore in setting up a green hydrogen plant at Jamnagar in Gujarat over the next four years.

This is part of the group’s comprehensive decarbonisation plan cutting across multiple industries and nations. The initiative comprises decarbonising the Essar UK oil refinery, constructing a green steel plant in Saudi Arabia, and building an LNG and electric ecosystem to decarbonise long-haul heavy trucks.

In addition, Essar is eyeing its foray into mining critical minerals, which are primarily essential in electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and wind turbine magnets.

Essar Future Energy, a division at the forefront of the green hydrogen project, looks forward to developing 1 gigawatt of hydrogen capacity and associated green molecules capacity of 1 million tonne per annum in Jamnagar over the next four years.

A 4.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy will power the plan from the subsidiary Essar Renewables to split water molecules to produce hydrogen and oxygen.

Hydrogen, which on burning produces only water, cannot be shipped easily. So, it is used to make green ammonia which is relatively easy to transport.

Essar, which turned debt-free in 2022, is eyeing expansion of its capacity to generate electricity from coal alongside building a renewable energy platform. Also, the group is building a retail network to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to trucks.

Essar Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Limited (EOGEPL), a frontrunner in the coal bed methane industry, contributes nearly 65% of India’s total coal bed methane production and eyes to increase its contribution to India's total gas production to 5% within the next five years.

Additionally, Essar is producing gas from coal seams from a block in West Bengal. The group is also exploring for shale gas in the Raniganj coal bed methane (CBM) block in West Bengal.