Global Hydrogen Generation Market By Merchant & Captive Type, Distributed & Centralized Generation, Application & Technology - Trends & Forecasts (2011 - 2016)

Hydrogen Generation Market - by Merchant & Captive Type, Distributed & Centralized Generation, Application & Technology - Trends & Global Forecasts (2011 - 2016)

Hydrogen has number of applications from chemical processing, petroleum recovery and refining, metal production and fabrication, aerospace, and fuel cells. The sectors which impose the largest demand for hydrogen are petroleum refinery and ammonia production while automotive fuel is an emerging sector with huge potential in the future. Hydrogen can be generated by the company itself which is utilizing it and can also be purchased from hydrogen producers (other company). The former one called the captive production while later one is known as merchant production.

Market size of global hydrogen production is estimated to 53 million metric tons in 2010, in which 12% is shared by merchant hydrogen and rest with captive production. With decreasing sulfur level in petroleum products, lowering crude oil quality and rising demand of hydrogen operated fuel cell applications, global hydrogen production volume is forecasted to grow by compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.6% during 2011 - 2016. Hydrogen production market in terms of value is estimated to be $82.6 billion in 2010.

Hydrogen is either produced centrally or on-site. On-site generation (also known as distributed generation) eliminates number of problems associated with transportation and delivery and thus market for on-site generation system is growing significantly. Also, in recent years, small scale on-site generation option has become more lucrative since new on-site hydrogen generation technologies offering low cost when compared to delivered merchant hydrogen. When hydrogen is produced using a centralized plant, it has to be delivered to the point of consumption by various delivery modes such as pipeline, cylinders, trailers, etc.

For large quantities, pipelines are the preferred option. Although pipeline delivery is cheaper compared to packaged options like trailers in long term, but it can only be economically justified when quantity is sufficiently high. Pipelines require significant initial investment and thus preferred when sales are high. On the other hand, cylinders are used for small quantities and hence preferred by industries such as glass manufacturing, metal production and fabrication, food processing, electronics etc.

Asia & Oceania region is the largest market with 39% of global production share in 2010. The region generated around 21 million metric tons of hydrogen in 2010. Asia & Oceania region pioneers in refinery and ammonia production capacity and this makes it the largest consumer. Europe & Eurasia is the second largest producer followed by North America which comes third. North America is the largest market for merchant hydrogen with 60% of global merchant hydrogen production in 2010. Country wise, U.S. is the largest merchant producer with 47% of global merchant hydrogen production share. China is the largest consumer with 22% of global hydrogen consumption share. China's maximum demand comes from ammonia producers. The country is the world's largest ammonia producer and accounts for 32% of world wide ammonia production as per 2010 data.

Presently, most of the hydrogen for industrial purposes is produced by steam reforming of natural gas or methane. This production technology dominates due to easy availability and low prices of natural gas. Partial oxidation of petroleum oil is second in production capacity after steam reforming of natural gas. The third largest production technology in terms of production capacity is steam gasification of coal. In 2010, estimated 25.6 million metric tons of hydrogen was produced using steam methane reforming (SMR). If looking at production cost, it varies according to size of production plant, type of plant, utilization factor, feedstock's cost, transportation, and delivery. This report focuses and analyzes hydrogen production cost for all major production technologies against different feedstock and plant capacity factor.

The report 'Hydrogen Generation Market by Merchant and Captive Type, Distributed and Centralized Generation, Application and Technology - Trends and Forecasts 2011-2016' identifies all possible market segments and gives current and future market size estimations in terms of volume and value for all.