The global transition toward net-zero emissions has intensified the search for cleaner energy sources capable of replacing fossil fuels in heavy industry, shipping, and power generation. While hydrogen has emerged as one of the most promising solutions, transporting it across continents remains one of the greatest technical and economic challenges. Hydrogen is highly volatile, difficult to store, prone to leakage, and requires extremely low temperatures for transportation, making long-distance shipping both expensive and inefficient.

As a result, governments and energy companies are increasingly embracing green ammonia as the preferred carrier for hydrogen. Produced by combining hydrogen with nitrogen, green ammonia is easier to store, transport, and handle using much of the world’s existing fertilizer and port infrastructure. More importantly, it contains a higher concentration of hydrogen by volume than liquid hydrogen itself, making it an ideal fuel carrier for the future hydrogen economy.

This emerging industry has placed North Africa-particularly Morocco and Algeria-at the center of one of the world’s most important energy transformations. Blessed with abundant sunshine, vast desert landscapes, favorable wind conditions, and existing energy infrastructure, the Maghreb possesses nearly every ingredient necessary to become a global supplier of green ammonia. Yet while the economic opportunities are immense, the region also faces difficult questions regarding water scarcity, environmental sustainability, infrastructure development, and political rivalry.

Hydrogen has long been viewed as the fuel of the future because it produces no carbon emissions when used. However, transporting pure hydrogen across oceans presents enormous engineering challenges. It can weaken steel pipelines through embrittlement, escape through microscopic openings due to its tiny molecular size, and requires storage at cryogenic temperatures approaching minus 253 degrees Celsius.

Green ammonia solves many of these problems. It can be liquefied under relatively moderate conditions, transported using existing ammonia shipping networks, and converted back into hydrogen when it reaches its destination. It can also be used directly as a low-carbon fuel in shipping, power generation, and fertilizer production.

As countries pursue ambitious decarbonization targets, global demand for green ammonia is expected to increase dramatically over the coming decades, opening enormous export opportunities for regions capable of producing renewable electricity at scale.

Few regions are as well positioned as North Africa to capitalize on this opportunity.

The Sahara Desert receives some of the highest levels of solar radiation anywhere on Earth. In many parts of Morocco and Algeria, solar resources significantly exceed those available in southern Europe. Massive........

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