Editor's note: In a previous version of this article, the flow the deal was misrepresented. Reliance Industries will supply Samsung C&T with green ammonia.
Dive Brief:
- Reliance Industries Limited, an India-based energy giant, announced Monday it had reached a long-term supply and purchase agreement with Samsung’s construction and trading subsidiary for green ammonia valued at $3 billion.
- Under the deal, Reliance Industries will provide Samsung C&T Corporation with green ammonia over a 15-year period, starting in the second half of 2029. Reliance said in a March 16 press release that the agreement is “one of the largest binding long-term green ammonia” deals globally, to date.
- Reliance Industries — led by multibillionaire Mukesh Ambani — is India’s largest publicly traded company by market capitalization, revenues and profit, specializing in oil and gas exploration and production, and also manufacturing petrochemicals, polyesters and plastics. The company has a 2035 net-zero goal and claims to have sourced 2 million barrels of “the world’s first carbon-neutral oil” from the Permian Basin in 2021.
Dive Insight:
Reliance Industries deal with Samsung is designed to support Reliance Industries’ “New Energy” initiative, a platform the energy company is developing to support renewable energies, energy storage, green hydrogen and “downstream green fuels and chemicals.” Reliance Industries said the deal is the first in a “series of long-scale partnerships” designed to scale the company’s New Energy platform.
Ammonia is used as a key ingredient in nitrogen fertilizers, which are widely used for agriculture, and is made from directly combining nitrogen and hydrogen. “Green ammonia” is made using hydrogen created by using renewable energies like solar or wind to run a water electrolyser to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, then combined with nitrogen through a process also run on renewable energies, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Reliance Industries Executive Director Shri Anant Ambani said the energy company’s partnership with Samsung’s subsidiary will allow the company “to supply green ammonia that is cost-competitive and reliable” and called the deal “an important step in India’s clean-energy journey.”
“RIL’s New Energy initiative aims not only to advance the energy transition but also to build a strong industrial platform for India by integrating India’s renewable resources with the country’s manufacturing leadership, world-class talent and innovation to produce value added green fuels and chemicals at scale,” Anant Ambani said in the release.
Reliance Industries said its looking to help India build its national production of solar, battery energy storage systems and that the latest deal is aligned with India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission. India’s strategy for the NGHM includes investing ₹ 17,490 crore ($1.88 million) by 2029-30 to incentivize the manufacture of electrolyzers and green hydrogen production and is also piloting green hydrogen hubs, according to a program webpage.
“Partnerships such as this will help scale our green hydrogen ecosystem and gigafactories, while contributing to India’s ambition of becoming a global hub for green hydrogen and its derivatives,” Anant Ambani added.
The United States created its own program to fund clean hydrogen hubs around the country, as part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. However, the Trump administration cut funding for two of the West Coast hubs that were planning to produce hydrogen from clean energy last year, rescinding $2.2 billion in funding for the two hubs.
