The Rotterdam chemical industry could require up to half as many fossil raw materials by 2050, but only if large-scale, coordinated development is chosen. That is the central conclusion of a new study commissioned by the Province of South Holland into syngas chains in the Rotterdam Port-Industrial Complex (HIC). The study, conducted by Tekenkamer van de Industrie and Sproule ERCE, emphasizes one core message: scale is the deciding factor.
Strategic heart of Europe
The Port of Rotterdam area processes approximately 200 million tonnes of carbonaceous materials annually and has its own conversion capacity of 50 million tonnes per year, making it the largest carbon conversion hub in Europe. No other cluster in Europe can take over this role in the short term. The transition to net-zero and circularity requires that this enormous volume of fossil carbon be gradually replaced by renewable alternatives.
Syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2), has traditionally been produced from coal or natural gas, but can also be extracted from waste streams and biomass. In doing so, it serves as a versatile bridge between renewable raw materials and existing chemical production processes. Through subsequent conversions such as Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and methanol-to-olefins, it can be converted into fuels and chemical building blocks that replace fossil alternatives.
Three scenarios with very different outcomes
The researchers developed three fundamentally different development scenarios, each defined by a different scale: 100.000 tonnes of renewable carbon per year (Version 1: Circular Carbon Niche), 1 million tonnes per year (Version 2: Industrial Scale), and 10 million tonnes per year (Version 3: Renewable Carbon Megahub). These three versions are not successive steps on a growth path, but deliberately polarized strategic choices with widely divergent consequences.
The outcomes per scenario are clear. Version 1 leads to early action but covers less than 10% of future carbon demand and results in continued import dependency. Version 2 achieves a meaningful scale but is limited to approximately 20% of the required quantity due to space constraints in the HIC. Only Version 3 is large enough to achieve true strategic autonomy and aims for 50% of carbon demand, provided that a dedicated syngas infrastructure network is established that decouples and integrates production and use across the entire cluster. The researchers succinctly summarize the conclusion in the title of their report: Go Big or Go Home.
Scale determines who is in charge
An important insight from the research is that the required coordination shifts as the scale grows. In Version 1, it is project developers who take the lead bottom-up. In Version 2, major industrial players and joint ventures are in charge, supported by stable long-term policy. In Version 3, national coordination is inevitable, because only the national government has the institutional position to organize coordination with European parties and the broader ARRRA region.
Provincial Executive member Arne Weverling for Port and Industry endorses the outcome: the province calls on parties to take the next step together and further develop the idea of a syngas chain in South Holland.
Biomass and waste as raw materials
In addition to waste streams, biomass plays a central role as a feedstock for gasification in the syngas chain. Furthermore, syngas can be produced through the conversion of CO2 via the reverse water-gas shift reaction. This diversity of feedstocks increases security of supply and makes the chain more robust under geopolitical pressure, a factor that was explicitly taken into account in the study.
The full white paper and the accompanying technical reports are publicly available.
Source: Province south-Holland
Photo: Nataraj, Adobe Stock
