DLA Piper advises on ground-breaking renewable hydrogen project

Global law firm DLA Piper is pleased to advise ENGIE on the development, construction and financing of the first phase of Project Yuri, pursuant to which the Project will supply renewable hydrogen into Yara’s existing ammonia plant in the Pilbara, Western Australia.

This is a ground-breaking project that will create a whole new industry value chain, whereby the Project will construct a plant consisting of a 10 MW electrolyser, an 18 MW PV array and an 8 MW battery energy storage system to harvest the abundant solar resource in Western Australia to produce renewable hydrogen to be supplied as a feedstock to produce renewable ammonia to service local and export markets.

“Renewable hydrogen is quickly establishing itself as an energy source which will play a key role in the success of the energy transition and in achieving the aspired greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050.  We are delighted to be able to work with ENGIE and its partners in the Project to enable the development of Project Yuri and are proud to have worked on such a transformational project,” said Brisbane-based Tom Fotheringham, Partner, DLA Piper.

This Project received grant funding from ARENA’s Advancing Renewables Program and from the Western Australian Government’s Renewable Hydrogen Fund.

DLA Piper advised ENGIE on key project documents and the grant funding agreement with ARENA.

“We are delighted to be able to support our long-time client, ENGIE, on this first-of-its-kind green hydrogen project. This is a great example of the capabilities of the firm globally, particularly in terms of our finance and projects teams across France, Singapore and Australia,” said Singapore-based Vincent Seah, Partner, DLA Piper.

Alex Jones, Perth-based Partner and Global Co-Chair of Energy and Natural Resources, notes that:

“This is a major project for Western Australia’s renewable hydrogen development and demonstrates the regions potential to be part of global energy transition.”

DLA Piper’s global, cross-practice / cross-jurisdictional team was led by Vincent Seah and Tom Fotheringham with significant involvement from Alyson Eather (Partner, Construction); Alex Jones (Partner, Energy, Resources, Environment and Native Title); Alex Regan (Partner, Project Finance); Eagul Faigen (Partner, Real Estate) and support from Senior Associates, Marnie Calli, Matthew Roberts, Rhys Rowland and Madison Orr.

“We thank the many team members who provided their expertise on this matter,” added Tom.