From Malaysia's Business Today, October 30:
GIC – Petronas To Invest US$1.6 Billion Into India’s Green Ammonia Project
Malaysian state-owned energy company Petronas is set to invest USD1.6bn (RM7.62 Billion) in an Indian green ammonia venture, in a boost to New Delhi’s ambitions to export energy.
The investment by Petronas’s Gentari renewables division will give it a 30 per cent stake in a green ammonia company incorporated by the founders of Indian renewables group Greenko, one of India’s largest wind and solar power producers and energy storage operators, according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal and two people briefed on it.
It will be one of the top five biggest private capital raises in India so far this year, according to Dealogic data, and is the latest sign of international investor appetite for India’s growing renewable energy industry.
The investment values AM Green Ammonia Holdings at roughly USD5.5bn, said a person with direct knowledge of the transaction. Bloomberg first reported the deal.
Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC will also be investing, according to people with direct knowledge, who declined to say how much the investment would be worth. GIC is Greenko Energy Holdings’ biggest shareholder and has four non-executive seats on its board.
Ammonia is considered “green” if it is made with hydrogen that is produced by electrolysis of water using renewable energy, and combined with nitrogen to become liquid.
While this makes the liquid form more readily transportable than hydrogen gas, it can also lead to emissions of nitrous oxide gas as a byproduct.
Under the investment agreement, AM Green Ammonia will produce 5mn tonnes of green ammonia by 2030, with operations across five Indian states, and will begin exporting it in the next two years.
Traditionally best known for its use in fertilisers, many companies and governments believe ammonia will help ease their dependence on fossil fuels.
Mahesh Kolli, Greenko’s group president and joint managing director, told the Financial Times that ammonia had become a “strategic molecule”.
With swaths of India soaked in sun for much of the year, investors are also eyeing the country’s potentially vast solar capacity for producing both hydrogen and ammonia using renewable energy.
AM Green plans to build the world’s “lowest cost hydrogen delivery platform” by leveraging renewable energy generation and storage capabilities, Kolli added. The Greenko Group is already manufacturing electrolysers that are used in making green hydrogen alongside Belgian engineering company John Cockerill. Kolli said this would help reduce costs....
....MUCH MORE
