MUSCAT: OQ Gas Networks (OQGN), Oman’s National Infrastructure Provider for hydrogen pipelines, has committed to leveraging its expertise as the country’s sole gas transportation operator to drive down the Levelized Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH) production—an essential factor in advancing Oman’s green hydrogen economy.

Majority state-owned OQGN – part of OQ Group – also announced that it is collaborating with various government and public sector stakeholders in the development of hydrogen pipeline infrastructure that will support the growth of the green hydrogen industry in Oman.

The revelations came during a discussion session hosted recently by publicly-listed OQGN with a focus on its financial and operational performance during 2024.

“OQGN has been one of the leading companies working with the government and other main stakeholders to grow and enable the energy transition, and specifically to enable the green hydrogen economy in Oman,” an official said.

“Oman has strong ambitions to be an exporter of green energy, whether as green hydrogen or its derivatives. We have positioned ourselves to enable this to happen, and to be the infrastructure provider for transportation of hydrogen.”

In its capacity as National Infrastructure Provider for hydrogen pipelines, OQGN has been liaising with Hydrom – the orchestrator of Oman’s green hydrogen industry – on the master-planning of the pipeline network. “OQGN is actively involved in Hydrom’s feasibility study, aligning on technical, commercial, financial and legal considerations,” the company noted in a presentation.

“We are one of the first companies to sign an MoU with (Hydrom) and we’ve been working very diligently with them in support of the (national) goal to produce and export about 1 million tonnes per annum of green hydrogen by 2030, rising to 8 million tonnes by 2050 – quantities that mean potential pipeline volumes for us at OQGN,” an official explained.

“In addition, we have conducted a techno-commercial strategic study to look at how we can position ourselves, the business models we can employ here, the potential impacts on us, and obviously what are the revenues we can see from this very attractive business opportunity.”

Furthermore, OQGN is working with Hydrom to finalize its pre-FEED study for a Common Use Infrastructure (CUI) system, which will support green hydrogen projects across allocated and future government-awarded land blocks. OQGN’s role is to develop and operate pipeline networks that will transport green hydrogen from these land blocks to a dedicated zone planned near the Port of Duqm for the further processing of these green molecules into derivatives like green ammonia and green methanol, among other commodities for export. Part of these green molecules will be used as fuel to power a number of hard-to-abate industries like steel and aluminium.

“OQGN is planning to develop an optimal hydrogen pipeline network to cater to announced and future blocks, taking advantage of economies of scale, and Right of Way (ROW) efficiencies to lower transportation costs,” the company added.

OQGN currently owns and operates Oman’s 4,235km-long gas transportation network, delivering natural gas as fuel and feedstock to 130 major customers, including Power & Desalination plants, Refineries and Petrochemicals projects, Fertilizers and Chemicals manufacturers, Steel and Cement plants, and assorted industrial parks – distributed across the country.

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