Norton Rose Fulbright advises in relation to bp’s entry into the world’s largest renewables and green hydrogen project

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright advised the leading green fuel developer InterContinental Energy on bp’s entry into the Asian Renewable Energy Hub (also known as the AREH project). The Asian Renewable Energy Hub is the world’s largest renewables and green hydrogen energy hub with 26GW of renewable energy planned for the Pilbara region of Western Australia. bp will acquire a 40.5% equity stake in the project, and become the operating partner of the AREH, subject to FIRB approval process. 
 
bp brings its resources and capabilities to support the project’s vision of competitive production of green fuels at oil-and-gas scale. InterContinental Energy will continue to play an important role in the AREH project as the second largest shareholder. InterContinental Energy will work closely with bp to create necessary global partnerships to fulfill the vision of the project – by producing 10 million tons per annum of green hydrogen.

AREH is one of four world scale green hydrogen projects that InterContinental Energy is developing.  The others are Green Energy Oman (25GW), Western Green Energy Hub (up to 50 GW across 15,000km2) and the Saudi Arabia Renewable Energy Hub.

Norton Rose Fulbright's energy team in Singapore and Perth supported the transaction. Ben Smith, who led the Singapore team, commented: “We are delighted to advise InterContinental Energy on this important transaction that will give real impetus to the development of green hydrogen as a zero carbon fuel of the future. This transaction builds on the great work that colleagues in Australia have been doing for a number of years supporting InterContinental Energy’s development of its two industry changing projects in Western Australia.” 
 
Ben is also supported by senior associate Chris Bell in Singapore.