| |
Nearly 96% of all hydrogen is derived from fossil fuels, with natural gas being by far the most frequently used, with an estimated 49%, followed by liquid hydrocarbons at 29%, 18% from coal and about 4% from electrolysis and other by-product sources of hydrogen.
The merchant hydrogen business, representing volumes of hydrogen that are sold by industrial gas companies, is a small portion of the total hydrogen market and includes gaseous product delivered by single- or multiuser pipelines and liquid or gaseous hydrogen delivered in cylinders, tank trucks or railcars. Over the years, consumers started to outsource hydrogen production to the big industrial gas companies. An important part of new hydrogen capacity is now being constructed by large gas companies, either on site, or to be delivered via pipeline networks.
Merchant hydrogen may be intentionally produced or recovered from by-product sources. Merchant hydrogen is the primary source of hydrogen for small-volume consumers in the electronics, glass and chemicals industries and for applications that require liquid hydrogen, such as rocket fuel. It is also used to supplement the requirements of captive producers. The gaseous hydrogen business is regional, with product seldom traveling more than 100 miles, whereas liquid hydrogen is routinely transported over great distances (1,000 miles or more) to reach consumers.
The following graph shows both captive and merchant consumption of hydrogen by region and end use:
Since the early 1990s, consolidation has trimmed the number of global major industrial gas companies from ten to four. Linde’s acquisition of BOC in 2006 was the latest step in this consolidation process, which made Linde the largest gas producer worldwide, followed by Air Liquide, Air Products and Praxair.
Opportunities in hydrogen look strong in the forecast period (2006–2011), with an estimated consumption of close to 900 billion normal cubic meters (81 million metric tons) in 2011. Demand for distillate is steadily on the increase. Refineries are large-volume producers and consumers of hydrogen.
In general, environmental regulations implemented in most industrialized countries result in increased hydrogen requirements at refineries for gasoline and diesel desulfurization because of increased demand for cleaner fuels and tighter engine manufacturer specifications. At the same time, heavy crudes, which are hydrogen-deficient compared with lighter crudes, are making up an increasing proportion of refinery runs. This means the availability of by-product hydrogen at refineries is likely to decline while hydrogen requirements increase. In the past, hydrogen refineries recovered sufficient hydrogen from refinery and petrochemical off-gases, but now have been purposefully producing hydrogen to meet their needs. Technologies used in such cases include membranes, adsorption and cryogenic recovery.
In addition, oil-sands processing, gas-to-liquids, and coal gasification projects that are ongoing, all require enormous amounts of hydrogen and will boost the size of the market significantly in the next five years.
|
