The "economical" role of hydrogen energy - hydrogen production from natural gas

Satellite Chemical has two sets of 1.25 million tons of ethane cracking plants in Lianyungang, of which the first phase project has been put into operation in mid-2021, and the second phase project is expected to be put into operation in 2022, with a total by-product of about 140,000 tons of high-purity hydrogen, plus the 140,000 tons of by-product hydrogen produced by Satellite Chemical's three sets of propane dehydrogenation plants in Pinghu, Jiaxing. Satellite Chemical's light hydrocarbon chemical by-product "blue hydrogen" totals about 280,000 tons, and is the largest hydrogen energy producer in East China.

The second company, Fumiao Technology, has built a natural gas hydrogen production device with an annual capacity of 36.61 million cubic meters, which is directly supplied to enterprises in the central area through pipelines, and the capacity utilization rate in the past three years is about 40%. The purity of the company's hydrogen is higher than that required for hydrogen energy vehicles and can be used in fuel cells for hydrogen energy vehicles. The company has joined the Suzhou Hydrogen energy Industry Innovation Alliance, and will become the upstream supplier of hydrogen energy vehicle industry chain in the future, and its annual sales of hydrogen is between 40 million and 50 million yuan.

The third Frean Energy, the company invested in the construction of Nanzhuang hydrogen and hydrogenation gas integration station started operation in July last year, which is also the first station in the station of natural gas hydrogen and hydrogenation integrated station, hydrogen and hydrogenation capacity of 1100 kg per day, can meet the hydrogenation needs of 100 buses or 150 logistics vehicles.

The fourth Huibo is different from the first three companies, it is an international oil and gas resource development and utilization of comprehensive solutions service provider, Huibo provides the "blue hydrogen" production is a key link - carbon capture and utilization and storage (CCUS). Thanks to the use of advanced technologies such as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), the production of "blue hydrogen" enables low-emission production, which gives "blue hydrogen" a higher environmental advantage over "gray hydrogen" when the cost difference is not too great.

Although the main business of these companies is not the same, but because they are involved in hydrogen business, are standing on the air of The Times, then, how is their performance?

Eastern Wealth data show that in the first three quarters of 2021, Satellite Chemical, Fumiao Technology, Fufuan Energy and Huibopu achieved revenue of 200.18 billion yuan, 1.037 billion yuan, 9.631 billion yuan and 1.025 billion yuan respectively, and achieved net profit of 4.256 billion yuan, 90 million yuan, 393 million yuan and 112 million yuan, respectively. From the company's overall performance point of view, satellite chemistry "one ride clean dust", the most bright. From the perspective of gross profit margin of sales, Huibopu is the highest, at 36.92%, and Fofuel Energy is the lowest, at 12.61%.

Although the hydrogen energy business of each company has different degrees of contribution to the performance, in the capital market, most of them have attracted the attention of funds because of their excellent performance and the concept of superimposed hydrogen energy. From January 1, 2021 to March 2, 2022, the share price of Satellite Chemical rose 132.85%, and as of the close of March 2, the total market value reached 74.4 billion yuan, becoming a no problem hydrogen energy leader. From the perspective of dynamic price/earnings ratio, satellite Chemical is the lowest, 13.12, and Huibo is the highest, 38.04; From the point of view of price-to-book ratio, the price-to-book ratio of these companies is relatively low, and the highest satellite chemical is only 4.2; From the perspective of return on equity, satellite chemistry is the highest, at 27.15%.

"Double carbon" background

Who is the future of the hydrogen industry?

With the increasing energy consumption, finding new energy sources has become an important task at present. As a kind of energy with the most development potential, hydrogen has a wide range of sources, almost no pollution in the process of use, high conversion efficiency, and wide application prospects. The use of natural gas to produce hydrogen (" blue hydrogen ") can alleviate the pressure in the process of energy substitution in China to a certain extent, and further promote the transformation of China's energy utilization structure.

At present, the production of "blue hydrogen" from natural gas is better than the "gray hydrogen" from coal in carbon emissions, and is better than the "green hydrogen" from wind power in production cost, which is a more reasonable choice in the current hydrogen production method, but there are also some problems in the production of "blue hydrogen".

The cost of hydrogen production from natural gas is mainly determined by the price of natural gas, and the cost of natural gas raw materials accounts for 70-90%. At the same time, in order to prevent the poisoning of the reforming catalyst, the production process of hydrogen production from natural gas needs to reduce the sulfur content of the raw gas to less than one part per million, so the impurity concentration of the produced hydrogen can be relatively low. In the production of "blue hydrogen" in China, the supply of domestic natural gas resources is limited and the regional distribution is mainly in the west, the sulfur content is high, and the pretreatment process is complex, resulting in the relatively high cost of domestic natural gas hydrogen production.