Saudi Arabia, EU discuss ways to develop clean hydrogen

Saudi Arabia, EU discuss ways to develop clean hydrogen

RIYADH: The EU’s Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans and European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson have held discussions with government officials from Saudi Arabia to further develop cooperation on the production of clean hydrogen.

Timmermans and Simson also met Saudi Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman during their visit to Riyadh on March 5-6.

Timmermans told Arab News: “For the European Union, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a strategic partner, and one of the areas where this strategy needs to be made concrete is in energy and specifically in the energy transition, and in all of this green hydrogen will play a crucial role.



“Europe needs a lot of clean hydrogen in the future. The Kingdom has a lot of ambitions in developing clean hydrogen [and] that means there is a lot of scope for intensive cooperation.

“There is a strong realization on both sides that the climate crisis is an existential crisis to humanity that doesn’t need explanation, and that is something that is well understood.”

He said that a plan was in place for the two parties to meet regularly to gauge the progress being made.

He added: “We are absolutely pragmatic in our approach. We cannot say there is