Under a new memorandum of understanding (MOU), the trio will look to ship liquid blue hydrogen produced at Woodside’s planned project south of Perth to Japanese consumers.

The H2Perth project, which has been in the works since 2021, intends to establish both green and blue hydrogen production with a combined initial capacity of 0.84 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) in 2027.

Woodside has secured a conditional offtake for some of the plant’s output with Keppel, which plans to use the hydrogen to power its data centres in Singapore.

However, with JSE and KEPCO, the oil and gas firm plans to ship liquid hydrogen on dedicated carrier ships to Japanese terminals.

Launched in 2021 as a joint venture between Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Iwatani Corporation, JSE aims to build and operate a global liquid hydrogen supply chain infrastructure.

It came out of the joint Japan-Australia Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) project, which saw hydrogen produced from coal in Australia’s Latrobe Valley and shipped to Japan on the world’s first liquid hydrogen carrier ship, the Suiso Frontier.

Despite plans for commercialisation, the project’s focus pivoted to source hydrogen domestically in Japan amid delays in Australia.

The Latrobe project had faced scrutiny from environmental groups due to its reliance on coal to produce the hydrogen, despite its intention to establish carbon capture capacity.

More broadly, liquid hydrogen shipping has been called into question due to its potential costs and challenges associated with boil-off and cryogenic storage.

However, supporters argue liquid hydrogen offers efficiency advantages over carriers like ammonia, which require an energy-intensive cracking process to release pure hydrogen.