ADB and Japan finance AM Green's Kakinada green ammonia plant

The Asian Development Bank and the Government of Japan have signed financing agreements with AM Green Ammonia (India) Private Limited for a plant that is to make about 1.1 million tons of ammonia a year with renewable power, ADB announced on October 15, 2026. The package includes a $100 million loan from the Leading Asia's Private Infrastructure Fund 2 (LEAP 2), which the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) finances and ADB administers. ADB calls it one of the world's largest plants of its kind, and the first investment under ACCEL, the energy-security initiative it launched with Japan in May 2026.

The plant is not new. The project converts a former ammonia and urea plant from natural gas-fueled production to renewable-powered ammonia, in ADB's description; AM Green places that complex in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, beside Kakinada Seaports, the port its ammonia for Germany is to ship from. ACCEL (Action for Creating Energy Security for Long-term Resilience) exists to help countries and businesses in Asia and the Pacific manage rising energy prices, and its first deal takes a fertilizer plant off natural gas.

ADB has priced only one piece of the package. Its release says the investment "includes" the $100 million loan, but gives neither the package's total size nor what else is in it.

"By using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, India can produce it with far lower emissions and at a scale that can help reshape this industry," said ADB President Masato Kanda. Japan's Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama tied the deal to Tokyo's wider program: "Japan is advancing POWERR Asia, including through ACCEL, and I welcome the first joint project under ACCEL."

The plant, by AM Green's numbers

AM Green's own documents describe a slightly smaller plant than ADB's 1.1 million tons. The company took its final investment decision on August 27, 2024 on what it called its "first million-ton green ammonia project," and its September 2026 boilerplate still describes a "1 MTPA green ammonia plant, currently under construction in Kakinada."

The power supply is the bigger build. In 2024 AM Green said it had secured 1,300 MW of round-the-clock carbon-free power, built from 4,500 MW of solar and wind hybrid capacity plus 950 MW of pumped storage, with a 25-year fixed-price power purchase agreement with NTPC covering half and the rest expected from Gentari. It named John Cockerill as the partner for 1.3 GW of pressurized alkaline electrolyzers. Hydrogen Insight reports that a first 640 MW phase is already under construction.

The calendar has moved. In August 2024, AM Green said the converted facility "will commence production in the second half of 2026," the half-year in which this financing was signed. Neither ADB's release nor AM Green's September 2026 statement gives a production start date; the earliest date in the newer contracts is a first shipment "as early as 2028."

Buyers in Europe and Asia

Japan's money is going into a plant that AM Green has pointed at Europe from the start. The 2024 announcement said most of the production would be exported to European markets, and the Kakinada facility had been pre-certified by CertifHy as meeting the EU's rules for renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBO), "including additionality and hourly matching of renewables."

Two European contracts have followed. On January 12, 2026, Uniper and AM Green signed a binding long-term offtake agreement under which Uniper will take up to 500,000 tons a year of RFNBO-certified ammonia from AM Green's projects, with the first shipment "expected to happen as early as 2028" from the Kakinada plant. Then on September 30, 2026, AM Green was named the sole winner of the Asian lot in the H2Global auction run by Hintco and funded by the German government. Hintco will buy ammonia from AM Green over 10 years for a minimum value of EUR 585 million, produced at Kakinada's second phase, with first deliveries to Germany expected in 2029.

Asia has a claim on the output too. Hydrogen Insight reports three additional offtakers in Japan lined up for the project, and AM Green's group president Mahesh Kolli said in September that the company would "deliver renewable ammonia to European and Asian customers" from Kakinada. Hintco says it will publish the full results of its H2Global tenders before the end of 2026.