The Scoop
General Atlantic’s sustainable infrastructure arm Actis and its partner Fortescue could begin construction of their first green hydrogen project in Oman within 18 months and ship initial cargo by 2030, a top Actis executive told Semafor.
The two firms won the right to develop the plant in April, choosing Oman after considering opportunities in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco — as well as farther afield in Australia, Chile, and China — according to Lucy Heintz, an Actis partner and the company’s head of energy infrastructure.
What made Oman attractive — in addition to natural resources — was a “government that wants to do business,” Heintz said. The total cost of the project will be “several billion dollars,” and could include up to 4.5 gigawatts of renewable wind and solar power. Green hydrogen could ultimately comprise around 10% of Actis’s portfolio, she said.
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Oman’s state-owned Hydrom, launched in 2022 and tasked it with managing the green hydrogen sector. The company provides infrastructure like power grid capacity, water, and port facilities, allowing investors like Actis to focus on renewable power generation, deploying electrolyzers, and building ammonia plants, Heintz said.
Hydrogen has taken on a rainbow of colors in industry jargon: green (produced from renewable energy), black (from coal), and white (naturally occurring). Oman is focusing largely on green hydrogen.
The country is targeting becoming the world’s sixth-largest hydrogen exporter by 2030, and expects its sales will exceed those of liquefied natural gas by 2050. The International Energy Agency projects the country will need to invest $20 billion for renewable power and $13 billion for electrolysis — to split water into hydrogen and oxygen — and ammonia conversion, needed to ship the element.