Green hydrogen is expected to play an important role in achieving EU climate neutrality, particularly in decarbonising hard-to-abate industrial sectors. As Dutch domestic renewable hydrogen production is expected to be insufficient, large-scale imports will be essential. Brazil has emerged as a promising supplier due to its abundant renewable electricity, favourable policy environment and growing pipeline of export-oriented green hydrogen projects. Within this context, the Pecém–Rotterdam corridor is among the more developed overseas hydrogen corridor initiatives, yet no operational supply chain has materialised and most projects remain before final investment decision.

This thesis examines how transition barriers shape the early-stage development of the Pecém–Rotterdam green hydrogen corridor. It addresses a gap in existing research, which often focuses on national hydrogen systems, regional value chains or isolated value-chain segments, while the interaction between exporting and importing regions remains underexplored. The study uses an exploratory embedded qualitative single-case design, combining Industry Life Cycle theory with the transition-failure framework to locate the corridor in an early market phase and diagnose the barriers preventing a first operational chain. The empirical basis consists of academic and grey literature, complemented by thirteen semi-structured interviews across seven stakeholder groups.

The findings show that the corridor is largely technically feasible, as ammonia, methanol and hydrogen are already produced, transported and traded globally. However, large-scale reconversion technologies such as ammonia cracking and methanol reforming remain immature, costly and energy-intensive, making direct carrier use more attractive in the short term. Sixteen barriers were identified and grouped into four clusters: market formation, the institutional and regulatory environment, infrastructure and production capability, and coordination and shared directional vision. The most binding barriers are the cost gap with fossil alternatives, weak and uncertain demand, regulatory uncertainty, limited subsidy budgets, and coordination complexities. Together, these barriers form a self-reinforcing bankability loop in which producers, offtakers, infrastructure developers and governments each wait for other actors to move first.

The study further finds that barriers differ across the corridor. Pecém mainly faces physical and operational constraints, including grid congestion and shared-infrastructure development, while Rotterdam faces more institutional and strategic barriers, including permitting complexity, public concerns around ammonia handling and tensions between climate ambition and industrial competitiveness. The main bottleneck lies on the European demand side, as Pecém’s development depends on credible long-term offtake from Europe.

The thesis contributes by analysing Pecém–Rotterdam as one integrated end-to-end socio-technical system and by adapting the transition-failure framework to an early-stage corridor context. It concludes that the corridor is not blocked by individual problems, but by mutually reinforcing uncertainties. Breaking this deadlock requires a predictable green premium, long-term regulatory certainty, bankable offtake, import-compatible public financing and coordinated chain commitment. A public-private corridor consortium focused on a small-scale demonstration chain could help reduce uncertainty, generate learning and build confidence for gradual scale-up.
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