July 17, 2024 [Reuters]- Saudi oil giant Aramco has signed final agreements to buy 50% of the blue hydrogen industrial gases business of Air Products Qudra (APQ), it said on Tuesday, continuing 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 U.S. industrial gases producer Air Products and Qudra Energy, a Saudi start-up set up in 2017.

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 $8.4 billion 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% stake in ACWA Power.

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