Expert tips industry breakthrough
With drilling ramping up around the world, one of the early natural hydrogen pioneers says he would not be surprised if the world’s first commercial play was confirmed any day.
The CEO/co-founder of HyReveal, Viacheslav Zgonnik, was a keynote speaker on the first day of the second Australian Natural Hydrogen Conference.
It’s possible a successful natural hydrogen play could be announced in weeks, CEO/co-founder of HyReveal, Viacheslav Zgonnik, has said at the Australian Natural Hydrogen Conference.
Speaking shortly after his presentation, he said it was possible the news the industry has been waiting for – commerciality of a proven hydrogen find – could come quickly.
“I’m an optimist by nature and I believe that within maybe a few months, even a year, there will be an announcement because companies are drilling right now, drilling in Australia, the United States and China, so we are maybe even weeks or months, but not more than a few years, from an announcement for a big success.”
Zgonnik started exploring for hydrogen back in 2011 and now runs a tech company dedicated to increasing the tools available for explorers.
He told the conference there had been massive growth in interest in the near carbon-zero gas – from one company looking in 2015 to more than 110 today. Nearly 30% of those were US-based, but Australia was the second biggest with 22%.
Start-ups had dominated early exploration, but the mining sector was now coming into the industry and five countries had got to the stage of test drilling.
However, at one of the biggest finds so far in the world, in the French region of Lorraine, they were still two years away from confirming results from test drilling.
Keynote speaker Jacques Pironon, founder of GeoRessources Research Laboratory, said his team were looking for methane when they hit hydrogen.
Jacques Pironon has given details about one of the biggest world finds of natural hydrogen, in Lorraine, France.
Interestingly, they had not ruled out hydrogen thermogenesis from coal. Their best case scenario was hydrogen over a 16,000sq km area, and a source likely deeper than 5km.
Other speakers confirmed countries like Japan, Canada and New Zealand were some way behind the Australians, US and Europeans.
Kim Picard from the Geological Survey Canada, said: “You (Australia) are ahead, definitely the top country with natural hydrogen.”
HyTerra, the Australian public company prospecting in Kansas in the US, are perhaps the only public company to drill wells this year.
Avon McIntyre, executive director and CTO, was confident progress being made.
“We need to get more holes in the ground. We are increasingly confident it is there in the crust,” he told the conference.
Their advantage was the ease of regulatory rules in the US.
In just four months they can go from “we like that area to we are drilling. I don’t think that’s possible in many parts of the world”.
There was plenty of evidence on day one of the growth in natural hydrogen interest in Australia.
Dr Trey Meckel, CEO of Koloma Australia, said by his count there were now 20 companies operating here, and they had raised $106 million from investors in the last year alone.
His company had identified 29 areas of interest across the continent and they included six of the 10 hydrogen habitats their parent company, backed by US billionaire Bill Gates, had identified worldwide.
The audience heard 38 exploration licences had been issued in South Australia since 2021, and another five were currently on offer. Over in Western Australia, 29 prospecting applications had been made, even before legislation had been passed to allow exploration.
Elsewhere, there was plenty of discussion on different types of hydrogen generation, end uses and the tech advancements or ideas to speed extraction.
A photo gallery from the conference can be found here, and individual presentations will be available on the NH2A website over the next month.
The conference wraps up tomorrow.
Our sponsors:
