The first cargoes have sailed: three Gulf mega-projects are now producing and shipping green ammonia under long-term offtake contracts, ending years in which the hydrogen economy existed mainly in consultancy decks. The projects pair some of the world's cheapest solar power with electrolyser installations at a scale attempted nowhere else.
The economics remain demanding — green ammonia still lands at a premium to its grey competitor — but the gap has halved in three years as electrolyser costs fall and carbon border tariffs in importing markets mature. Japanese and German utilities, the anchor buyers, treat the premium as an insurance policy on their own decarbonisation deadlines.
The region's advantage may prove less about sunshine than about execution muscle: the engineering, procurement and project-finance capacity to build first-of-a-kind plants on schedule. Every cost curve in the sector now cites Gulf project data — which is precisely the position the region's planners wanted.