Uruguay plans to open $4 billion of green hydrogen and hydrogen fuel projects in 2024

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou recently announced that a $4 billion, 1GW green hydrogen and synthetic fuel project will be opened in Uruguay in 2024.

Uruguayan Energy Minister Omar Paganini said at a press conference in the western city of Paysandu (Uruguay's western border city, the capital of the province of Paisandu) that 1GW of electrolytic cells, and carbon dioxide capture and synthetic fuel facilities, costing $2 billion, and another 2GW of wind and solar projects, including transmission lines, will be completed. It will cost $2 billion.

Neither Uruguay's president nor its energy minister said who would build the project, but a press release from Uruguay's state-owned oil company ANCAP said Chilean synthetic fuel producer and developer HIF Global had been selected.

ANCAP said Paisandu's project could produce 180,000 tonnes of synthetic gasoline per year, capture 710,000 tonnes of CO2 from biomass burning and grain-based ethanol distillation, and produce 100,000 tonnes of green hydrogen.

HIF already operates the world's first synthetic fuel plant, the landmark Haru Oni project in southern Chile. The project recently began exporting synthetic gasoline to German auto producer Porsche, which will also begin construction of a 1.8GW green hydrogen and synthetic fuel facility in Texas next year.