Name of the Project
HySHiFT sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) project.

Location
Secunda, in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

Project Owner/s
HySHiFT Consortium, comprising Linde, Sasol, ENERTRAG and HydRegen Energy.

Project Description
HySHiFT is one of nine green hydrogen projects registered with Infrastructure South Africa and is included in an updated list of Strategic Integrated Projects, published on December 6, 2022, in line with the Infrastructure Development Act. The project aims to produce SAF, or e-kerosene.

The consortium plans to build a 200 MW electrolyser and 450 MW of renewable electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and to use the green hydrogen in Sasol’s existing Fischer Tropsch facilities to produce 50 000 t/d of power-to-liquid, or PTL, kerosene. This could fuel two flights between Germany and South Africa a day.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Capital Expenditure
The German Economic Affairs and Climate Action Ministry is providing €15-million in funding for the first phase of the project, during which a 40 MW electrolyser will be built.

Planned Start/End Date
Not stated.

Latest Developments
Contractual negotiations are under way between the developers of the HySHiFT SAF project and the intermediary company set up under Germany’s H2Global scheme, known as Hintco, which enters into long-term purchase contracts for clean hydrogen and derivatives such as ammonia, methanol and SAF.

Speaking at Resources for Africa’s 2024 Hydrogen Discussion, in Johannesburg, on April 11, ENERTRAG business case development manager Jonathan Metcalfe said the project had been selected as a preferred bidder and that negotiations for a ten-year offtake deal could be concluded by mid-2024.

“We are currently in contractual negotiations with Hintco . . . and we are ready to commence detailed engineering [having already] completed the front-end engineering design on the project.”

The offtake agreement with Hintco could play a significant role in ensuring the project’s bankability; however, Metcalfe has indicated that ten years are not long enough to ensure prices that are low enough for a binding offtake agreement. Discussions are, thus, ongoing with the European Union and Germany about a longer-term floor price.

Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants
None stated.

Contact Details for Project Information
ENERTRAG, email enertrag@enertrag.co.za.
Linde, email hydrogen@linde.com.
Sasol senior manager: group media relations and external communication Alex Anderson, tel +27 71 600 9605 or email alex.anderson@sasol.com.