BP, Petronas in race to invest in Greenko founders’ new platform.

BP is competing with Petroliam Nasional Bhd or Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned energy company, to invest $1.5-2 billion for a significant minority stake in a new platform wholly owned by the two founders of Greenko, Anil Chalamalasetty and Mahesh Kolli, said people aware of the development.

Discussions have advanced with both parties and Greenko is expected to select one of the two energy majors for now, the people mentioned above added. Once concluded, this will be the biggest overseas investment in a green ammonia and hydrogen project till date in India.

It also comes when BP is under pressure from two of the UK’s largest pension funds, which oversee £130-billion assets. They have said they will vote against the renewal of the terms of top directors at BP and Shell unless both improve commitments to tackling carbon emissions.

BP India spokesperson however denied the development.." We would like to formally deny this story – BP is not making such an investment."

After committing to a net-zero carbon emissions target by 2050, BP walked back on its pledge to cut oil and gas output by 2030. CEO Bernard Looney said the group’s oil and gas output would fall only 25% from 2019 levels by 2030, down from a previous target of 40%.

The new platform is planning to produce 4-5 MTPA of green ammonia, green methanol and electrolysers at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, incurring a capital expenditure of $10 billion. The platform has already signed offtake agreements with Posco of South Korea, Uniper SE of Germany, and state-owned ONGC for green molecules from 2025. It has also signed an agreement with Keppel Infrastructure Holdings Pte of Singapore to explore building a factory together. With Belgium-based John Cockerill, the new platform plans to set up a giga factory to make electrolysers that split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The Kakinada project is a multi-phased export facility that aims to add up to 1 MTPA of green ammonia production capacity by 2027 and fits with India’s target of producing 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen per annum by 2030.

Phase 1 of the facility will produce green ammonia based on an electrolyser facility powered by round-the-clock power from 2.5 GW of renewable assets from the upcoming $3.5 billion Pinnapuram Integrated Renewable Energy Storage Plant in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh. That project will effectively turn 4,000 MW of intermittent solar and wind energy into firm, schedulable power via eight turbines that will rotate and generate current with water released from a manmade reservoir. This water, held initially at a lower level, will be pumped to the upper lake by energy harvested from green sources such as solar and wind before it’s released. The technical term for this is pumped-storage hydropower.

ET