BP Studies Green Hydrogen Production at Kwinana

BP Australia has announced that it is undertaking a feasibility study into the production of green hydrogen at its Kwinana site in Western Australia.

The project is in partnership with Macquarie Capital and includes funding from the Western Australian Government, BP revealed. The company said the project marks a significant step in its broader plans to repurpose its Kwinana site as an integrated energy hub that produces and distributes fuel for the future. BP noted that it is already underway with plans to develop a renewable fuels plant at the site, producing sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel. 

“For more than 65 years, BP’s Kwinana site has played an integral role in the Kwinana Industrial Area, which is comprised of a diverse range of high emission producing industries, including mineral refineries, power stations, chemical plants and cement works,” Frédéric Baudry, the president of BP Australia and senior vice president of fuels and low carbon solutions for Asia Pacific, said in a company statement.

“We are excited by the role BP’s Kwinana energy hub will play in close collaboration with our partners. BP has a strong track record as an energy provider to the industrial area and has readily accessible land, existing infrastructure including storage and distribution facilities, and a team with extensive operational capabilities and experience,” he added in the statement.

“BP is committed to developing solutions that will help accelerate the energy transition in Australia. With our unique capabilities, BP can offer increasingly complex, multi-energy solutions to its partners and customers through their decarbonization journey,” Baudry went on to say.

John Pickhaver, the co-head of Macquarie Capital for Australia and New Zealand, said, “we are delighted to be partnering with bp in this project as part of our greater commitment to supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy”.

“We believe Australia – and Kwinana in particular – has a number of use cases that support a meaningful green hydrogen industry. We are looking forward to working with BP and the Western Australian Government on this significant project,” Pickhaver added in the statement.

The Kwinana Industrial Area is the largest industrial cluster in Western Australia, with more than 150 products, by-products and utilities exchanged between facilities in the region, BP highlighted.

In October last year, BP announced that it would cease fuel production at its Kwinana refinery and convert it to an import terminal. In a company statement at the time, BP noted that regional oversupply and sustained low refining margins mean the Kwinana Refinery is no longer economically viable. The refinery was said to employ around 650 people at the time, 400 of which were permanent staff and 250 of which were contractors. Once complete, the import terminal was expected to support around 60 jobs.

In addition to the Kwinana import terminal investment announcement, BP revealed in October that it was exploring future options for the site including a potential clean energy hub to harness the existing and emerging technologies required for the decarbonization of the Western Australian economy.

Last month, BP Australia announced the findings of its study into the feasibility of an export-scale green hydrogen and ammonia production facility in Western Australia. The study found that the production of green hydrogen and green ammonia using renewable energy is technically feasible at scale in Australia and its findings were said to support BP’s conviction that Western Australia is an ideal place to develop large scale renewable energy assets that can in turn produce green hydrogen and/or green ammonia for domestic and export markets. 

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