Middle East and Africa Hydrogen Market Outlook

Middle East and Africa Hydrogen Market Outlook

Summary

The MEA region is emerging as a key player within the emerging hydrogen market. Despite holding just an 11% share of current global active capacity, the region has a number of large-scale low-carbon hydrogen projects in the pipeline that will boost its positioning within the global hydrogen market.

A number of African countries such as South Africa, Egypt, Mauritania and Morocco aim to capitalize on their vast renewable resources to competitively produce green hydrogen both for domestic use as well as to serve markets experiencing a surge in demand, such as Europe. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the approach to low-carbon hydrogen is more blended, with companies investing in both blue and green hydrogen.

In African countries, transportation is the key focus demand sector, accounting for up to 6mtpa of capacity across 65 production facilities by 2030. A number of projects, particularly those situated strategically in marine port locations, are also gearing up to produce low-carbon fuels for the maritime sector such as South Africa’s Boegoebaai green hydrogen cluster. In the Middle Eastern context, ammonia is chiefly being focused on as an end-use sector for low-carbon hydrogen, with this demand sector potentially accounting for up to 49% of active and upcoming hydrogen capacity. Ammonia is a valuable end-product for fertilizers, plastics, and cleaning products as well as a transport and storage medium for hydrogen. Although the MEA region’s ammonia demand is forecast to remain relatively stable up to 2030, this focus within upcoming hydrogen production capacity indicates the region’s intention to capitalize on increasing demand for low-carbon ammonia in other markets such as Europe and Asia.

National strategies, roadmaps and incentives are helping to pave the way for hydrogen technology investments and deployment within the different sectors in which it can be used. However, numerous countries across the Middle East and Africa are yet to launch these initiatives and so the region’s signals to industry need to be stronger still. There is a heavy emphasis on partnerships within MEA’s regional hydrogen market, with this form of deal accounting for over 70% of total deal activity between January 2022 and February 2024. This trend indicates how companies operating in the MEA region are bidding to capture a greater share of the global hydrogen market through various offtake agreements. The partnerships trend also extends to international strategic alliances, with European institutions and member states being particularly active in securing agreements with emerging hydrogen-producing countries in Africa.

Key Highlights

• The Middle East and Africa is currently a minority player within the global hydrogen market, with an active capacity of 212 ktpa, which translates to an active capacity share of 11%.
• A number of countries in Africa will be key contributors to the MEA’s emerging hydrogen market including Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and South Africa as the region capitalizes on its renewable energy resources to produce green hydrogen.
• With 118 ktpa, Qatar leads in terms of active capacity, but is expected to fall down the country ranking as a number of large-scale projects become operational.
• Most hydrogen producers in Africa expect to supply the transportation market, which is projected to account for 6.1mtpa of hydrogen supply before 2030. While in the Middle East, ammonia remains a prevalent end use sector with ammonia being used by a number of industries including fertilizers, cleaning products, and plastics.
• Some countries are targeting the refining sector as a way to kick start demand for hydrogen. For example, the United Arab Emirates included refining as a key sector within its updated national hydrogen strategy published in July 2023.

Scope

Hydrogen regional market analysis

Total upcoming capacity and 2030 market size scenarios, highlighting recently announced projects by capacity.

Demand across different application sectors .

National and regional policy support and financial incentives

Reasons to Buy

Identify the market trends within the region and key players in hydrogen technologies.

Develop market insight of current, in development and announced capacity and latest trends of the sector.

Understand the region's different scenarios for 2030 based on the likeliness of the projects.

Look at the demand in key application areas for the country.

Facilitate the understanding on how and where the market is growing as it is rapidly scaling up to position as one of the main topics of the international and national agenda.