Aramco picks up 50% stake in APQ’s blue hydrogen business

Saudi oil giant Aramco has signed final agreements to buy 50 per cent of the blue hydrogen industrial gases business of Air Products Qudra (APQ). The deal was announced on Tuesday and continues the kingdom’s drive to become a major hydrogen producer.

Financial details of the transaction for Blue Hydrogen Industrial Gases Company (BHIG) were not disclosed, but, Aramco said the deal includes options for it to buy hydrogen and nitrogen.

APQ is a joint venture between US industrial gases producer Air Products and Qudra Energy, a Saudi start-up set up in 2017.

Saudi Arabi’s push towards an energy transition

Saudi Arabia, as well as some of its neighbours, are making big bets on hydrogen, spending billions of dollars to get a head start in the race to become a top supplier of what they see as a fuel of the future.

The kingdom wants to be the world’s biggest supplier of hydrogen, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al-Saud said in 2021.

The push is part of a vast economic agenda to cut the top oil exporter’s reliance on crude, spearheaded by its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Saudi Arabia had already signed off on an $8.4bn green hydrogen plant being built by NEOM Green Hydrogen Company, a joint venture between Air Products, ACWA Power and NEOM.

PIF fully owns NEOM, a planned futuristic city in the desert, and has a 44.16 per cent stake in ACWA Power.

Read: NEOM Green Hydrogen Company closes $8.4bn deal for production facility