Cepsa inks deal to ship green hydrogen to Port of Rotterdam

Spanish oil-and-gas group Cepsa and the Port of Rotterdam have signed an agreement to move green hydrogen across a corridor from southern Spain to northern Europe, they said on Tuesday.

Cepsa would produce hydrogen at its San Roque Energy Park near the Bay of Algeciras (Bay of Gibraltar) and export it to Rotterdam using ammonia or methanol as carriers. It intends to make use of cheap and plentiful renewables in Spain’s southern region of Andalusia to extract green hydrogen molecules, the companies said in their joint statement.

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The Port of Rotterdam, for its part, has partnerships in place to develop infrastructure and facilities needed to handle hydrogen imports and distribution via pipelines to large industrial centres in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

The companies expect the trade lane between the Port of Algeciras and the Port of Rotterdam to be ready by 2027.

Cepsa, which has been carving out its own space in the energy transition, plans to develop a similar green hydrogen supply chain from its La Rabida Energy Park in Huelva.

“Spain is ideally placed to become a world leader in the production and export of green hydrogen, given its strategic location, abundant generation of renewable energies, and its robust energy infrastructures and key ports, such as Algeciras and Huelva. Cepsa, the main energy company in Andalusia, intends to play a leading role in realizing this vision,” commented Maarten Wetselaar, CEO of Cepsa.

The partnership will contribute to Rotterdam’s goal to supply Northwest Europe with 4.6 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030, as the region consumes far more energy that it can produce in a sustainable way, according to Allard Castelein, CEO of the Port of Rotterdam Authority.

“We expect that in 2050 some 20 Mton of hydrogen will flow through the port, of which only 2 Mton will be produced locally,” added Castelein.