Final call on Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ $15b Murchison ammonia plant waits on clean fuel buyers

The foreign company behind a $15 billion green hydrogen and ammonia plant in WA’s Murchison is confident it can make a final investment decision by the end of 2027 as it pursues offtake markets beyond shipping fuels. But it acknowledges that the failure of international shipping talks that would have mandated the use of cleaner fuels in the sector from 2028 has “slowed down” offtake markets around the world. An International Maritime Organisation had been years in the making despite fierce opposition from Saudi Arabia, but member states voted last October to postpone a decision for a year after the US walked out of the talks. Murchison project chief executive Shohan Seneviratne said the Australian branch of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners had decided about a year ago to split the proposal for 6 gigawatts of renewable power generation and 3GW of electrolysis into two stages, each roughly half the size. While it had originally planned to make a final investment decision in 2025, that has now been pushed back to the end of 2027. Mr Seneviratne said that timeframe was necessary to get the fuel into the market when the EU’s renewable energy directive — RED III — mandating the use of green renewable fuels comes into effect in 2030. “A positive IMO decision on the zero (and) near-zero fuels would have stimulated the market more than anything else,” he said. “It would have given a one-stop shop for where green ammonia from around the world would have gone into a centralised location (for) centralised use. “Not having that has definitely slowed down the offtake markets, but we are looking at multiple offtake markets, not just maritime fuels.” CIP anticipated the RED III directives meant a significant increase in demand for green ammonia towards the end of the decade, and Mr Seneviratne said there were “a lot of dynamics in the market” as countries upgraded their climate policies. The company remained “steadfast” about pursuing the project, which will be built at Kalbarri, 600km north of Perth. It has completed environmental studies for the site and expects to submit the proposal for State and Federal environmental assessment in the second half of the year. It is also proceeding with early contractor involvement work. “That’s all progressing towards an FID at the end of 2027 — subject, of course, to where the offtake markets are, because we can’t take an FID unless we have the offtake markets aligned,” Mr Seneviratne said. “We are actually seeing green ammonia starting to come to the market — slower than everyone would want, but it’s definitely coming into the market — and we are at the forefront of green ammonia for Australia. “We’re doing all the work behind the scenes, whether it be engineering, whether it be environmental approvals and development, to ensure that we’ll be there to be the front-runner position in Australia.”