JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Amid green hydrogen being declared integral to a new industrial framework at the Africa Green Hydrogen Summit in South Africa, the global Hydrogen Council is urging the world to lift its hydrogen production game at pace.

While the summit was being told that South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan programme management office at the Industrial Development Corporation had identified 24 hydrogen projects, the Hydrogen Council co-chairperson and Air Liquide CEO François Jackow was advising the world to “bring hydrogen to scale”, while simultaneously pointing out that the energy issues triggered by the conflict in the Middle East had reminded everyone that energy security is a “vital priority”.

While the climate topic, underscored by the latest northern hemisphere heat wave, was still a significant hydrogen promoter, it was appropriate that the decarbonisation threat now be joined by “the state of the world, sovereignty, energy security, supply resilience, industrial competitiveness, energy strategy, and electrification”, which had become the additional strategic imperatives.

Clearly, hydrogen had a key role to play, Jackow stated during a Global Hydrogen Compass 2026 webinar covered by Mining Weekly.

Hydrogen facilitates cost reduction by being storable for long periods of time.

The evolution of the energy mix over the course of 200 years points to hydrogen advancing faster than any other new energy ever has, Baker Hughes CEO Lorenzo Simonelli noted, while emphasising the importance of continued investment in the rewriting of the energy equation as a collective ecosystem to develop the necessary price point.

“So, keep focused on the long-term prize that's definitely there,” Simonelli urged.

“From CF Industries' perspective, the most significant change has really been the maturation of a low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia market in North America,” said CF Industries CEO Chris Bohn, while pointing out that this advance had been driven by stronger focus on resilience, competitiveness and transitioning into project delivery mode: “No longer talking about it, but moving forward with it.”

North America reportedly holds about 80% of the global committed low-carbon hydrogen capacity, with the projects advancing there said to be the largest on average globally.

Bohn expressed the belief that this growth was built on the US Gulf Coast being low cost, low risk and offering long-term offtake partnerships, positioning it to be producing about three and a half million metric tons of low-carbon ammonia at the end of the decade.

Jackow described as “exciting” the collaborative building of the world’s hydrogen ecosystem.

“We’re seeing a true spirit of alignment and that's extremely powerful. I don't think there are very many new frontiers where you have such a good alignment of complementary partners getting together,” Jackow reported.

Simonelli spoke of Baker Hughes working across the entire hydrogen value chain from production, compression, transport, storage, and end use within every major region of the world, which had afforded the company a realistic view of the pace of hydrogen’s progress and its elevation from being a decarbonisation discussion to being a much broader energy security solution.

With hydrogen already embedded as a permanent energy reference point, significant action is being seen in Asia, where it is the fastest mover.

“When you look at it from a resource perspective, Asia doesn't have some of the resources that others do, so they're looking at hydrogen being an opportunity, and we're seeing considerable progress in China, but also elsewhere in the Middle East, as we look at hydrogen projects that are starting to emerge,” Simonelli explained.

Industrially, hydrogen was already playing long haulage, power generation and environmentally protective roles.

“We’ve definitely seen it pick up pace, and we think it’ll do so more as we go forward,” Simonelli predicted.

SOUTH AFRICA’S PLATINUM GROUP METALS

Through South Africa’s critical infrastructure programme fund, the Trade, Industry and Competition is supporting Hive Hydrogen South Africa’s $5.8-billion green hydrogen ammonia project in the  Nelson Mandela Bay local authority.

South Africa is the world’s biggest host of platinum group metals (PGM), which are used to catalyse proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers that generate green hydrogen and also in PEM fuel cells that convert the green hydrogen into electricity that is emission free.

Committed investment in clean hydrogen has reached $130-billion-plus and 90% of the 570 clean hydrogen projects are already under construction or operational.