Equinor halts Norway-Germany H2 pipeline planning

Norway's state-controlled Equinor said it has halted the development of a planned €4bn-6bn pipeline that would have exported hydrogen from Norway to Germany due to the lack of a viable business case.

"There was no clarity on the regulatory side, there were no customers and there was no supply," an Equinor spokesperson told Argus.

Equinor had said earlier this year that the pipeline was likely to follow in a later stage of development after its hydrogen production had started in mainland Europe, and that building the pipeline would be contingent on strong demand.

"You don't invest in a pipeline €4bn-6bn just for transporting a few molecules," the company's director of hydrogen in northwest Europe, Henrik Solgaard Andersen, said at the time. "You need to believe in the market."

Equinor announced a plan in early 2023 to supply hydrogen from Norway to German utility RWE for use in power plants. Equinor had envisaged making "significant quantities" of hydrogen from Norwegian gas with CO2 storage and eventually transitioning to renewable hydrogen.

But Germany has shifted its plans for hydrogen power a couple of times since then. It also has ambitions to use hydrogen in sectors like steel, but companies have not yet taken firm investment decisions, meaning there is uncertainty about how much hydrogen demand will materialise and when.

A joint study commissioned by the German and Norwegian governments last year and carried out by Norwegian state-owned offshore pipeline operator Gassco and the Germany Energy Agency (Dena) found the pipeline to be technically viable. Gassco was not immediately available to comment on whether it would continue developing the pipeline without Equinor.

The loss of the pipeline from a current energy trading partner and close ally looks to have choked off one of the most plausible import corridors envisaged to meet Europe's expected demand.

The pipeline capacity would have been 10GW by 2038, RWE and Equinor said previously, equating to 2.6mn t/yr of hydrogen based on its lower heating value.

By Aidan Lea