EPC contract awarded for Mexico turquoise hydrogen pilot plant

Clean hydrogen firm Tulum Energy (Mexico) has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to Scandinavian Energy Contractors (SEC) for the delivery of a pilot turquoise hydrogen plant in Pesquería.
The pilot facility will use proprietary electric arc furnace technology developed in part by Tulum Energy’s spin-out partner, Tenova.
Turquoise hydrogen involves splitting methane (natural gas) into hydrogen gas and solid carbon through methane pyrolysis.
The project is designed to validate methane pyrolysis-based turquoise hydrogen production, offering a pathway toward significantly reduced carbon intensity compared with conventional hydrogen production methods.
The award follows Tulum Energy’s C funding raise of around $27m as the company aims to make hydrogen decarbonisation affordable and scalable in hard-to-abate industries such as energy, petrochemicals and mobility.
Under the contract, Denmark-based SEC will provide detailed engineering and technical execution support for the next phases of the pilot plant.
The total scope of work includes detailed engineering of components and subcomponents, including balance-of-plant equipment, filtered gas blower, gas knockout drum, ground flare, gas supplies, instrument air and distribution skids, cooling water circuits, chemical injection skids, fire water system, the entire carbon black management system, and more.
SEC will also provide multidisciplinary engineering coordination, technical procurement support and supplier follow-up, construction preparation and interface management, and dry commissioning and start-up assistance as well as site management.
Last November, chemicals company BASF and oil and gas firm ExxonMobil unveiled plans for a demonstration plantthat uses methane pyrolysis technology to produce up to 2,000 tonnes of low-carbon hydrogen and 6,000 tonnes of solid carbon product a year.