Save for later Print Download Share LinkedIn Twitter Russia is becoming increasingly ambitious about its role in a future global hydrogen industry, significantly raising the export targets it set last year. However, its ambitions are not yet being matched by firm investments, which companies believe will need government financial support to make them economically viable. "Russia aims to join a group of the leading producers and exporters of hydrogen," Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak wrote in a recently published energy ministry newsletter. Russia's primary goal is to gain a 20% market share of global hydrogen trade by 2030, Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin said in a recent presentation. The 2035 energy strategy that Russia published last year set an export goal of 200,000 metric tons of hydrogen per year by 2024 and 2 million tons/yr by 2035. Moscow now considers that to be at the lower end of its target range and now sees potential to export up to 1 million tons/yr by 2024 and up to 7 million tons/yr by 2035, according to Sorokin, who said that the actual volume will depend on the pace at which the global market develops. Forecasts of global hydrogen demand by 2050 cover a wide range from below 100 million tons/yr to almost 700 million tons/yr, according to Novak. It's also unclear whether the hydrogen market will resemble today's oil or gas markets, or whether production will be concentrated near consumption centers, he wrote in the article. Looking further ahead, the energy ministry said Russia could export between 7.9 million and 33.4 million tons/yr of hydrogen by 2050. That could generate between $23.6 billion and $100.2 billion in annual revenue, according to RBC Daily, which cited a draft plan for Russia's hydrogen industry that the ministry prepared in line with a hydrogen road map (NC Oct.29'20). The ministry did not confirm the revenue estimates when approached by Energy Intelligence. It said only that the draft had been discussed with other state bodies and companies involved and will soon be submitted to the government. The upper end of the ministry’s target range -- especially for 2050 exports -- looks overly ambitious. The projected revenue from hydrogen exports is much higher than the current revenue from Russia's pipeline gas exports, for example. Gazprom's gas exports to Europe generated nearly $23 billion last year. The company is Russia's only exporter of pipeline gas and Europe accounts for some 85% of its total exports in terms of volume.
