The Adani group has joined hands with TotalEnergies of France in a green hydrogen venture, which will invest $50 billion over the next decade.
Green hydrogen, produced using renewable energy, has some of the best environmental credentials of the various shades of the clean-burning fuel.
TotalEnergies will acquire a 25 per cent minority interest in Adani New Industries Ltd (ANIL) from Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL). ANIL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AEL.
AEL said in a regulatory filing to the stock exchanges that TotalEnergies will have a board representation in proportion to its shareholding. It is not known how much Total will invest in the venture.
India has announced incentive schemes and companies including Reliance Industries, Indian Oil Corp and Adani Group have pledged to invest billions of dollars to develop clean energy projects in the country.
Gautam Adani will thus again take on Mukesh D Ambani who is also looking to produce green hydrogen.
Initially, Reliance is focussing on blue hydrogen. It had earlier announced plans to produce blue hydrogen at a “competitive cost” of about $1.2-1.5 per kg by repurposing its $ 4-billion gasification assets.
Adani Group already has a tie up with TotalEnergies for building liquefied natural gas terminals, gas utilities and renewable energy business.
TotalEnergies, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers, has faced criticism from climate activists and has been moving into the renewable energy sector and diversifying away from hydrocarbon-centred activities in recent years.
“Our confidence in our ability to produce the world’s least expensive electron is what will drive our ability to produce the world’s least expensive green hydrogen. This partnership will open up a number of exciting downstream pathways,” Adani said.
Patrick Pouyanne, chief executive of TotalEnergies, said the entry into ANIL “is a major milestone in implementing our low-carbon hydrogen strategy”.
The announcement led to the shares of AEL ending with strong gains of 5.53 per cent in an otherwise volatile market.
In the BSE, the scrip settled at Rs 2196.50 — a rise of Rs 115.05 over the last close. The counter currently has a market cap of over Rs 2.50 trillion.
