Pioneering Australian company Gold Hydrogen says it has discovered natural hydrogen with purity levels of up to 95.8% at its drill sites in South Australia, as well as helium with a purity of 17.5%.
“We continue to rack up astonishing results from our second round of well testing at our natural hydrogen play in South Australia,” the company explained in a market update today.
“The results are remarkable. The purity levels are believed to be amongst the highest anywhere in the world for helium and natural hydrogen.”
In an interview with Australian website Proactive Investors, managing director Neil McDonald explained that the 95.8% level found at its Ramsay 2 well is second only to the 98% levels seen in Mali, west Africa — at the world’s only exploited natural hydrogen well, where the H2 is burned to generate electricity for a nearby village.
“We’re very pleased that we’re continually getting high levels of purity above 73%,” he added.
Gold Hydrogen’s project on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, is more advanced that any other new natural-hydrogen project globally, and arguably the most promising for commercial-scale natural-H2 production.
In an announcement yesterday to the ASX stock exchange, where Gold Hydrogen is listed, the company noted that it had found “unexpectedly high permeabilities” in the underground rock formations, as well as H2 in all seven zones tested at Ramsay 2 (ie, at different depths).
This indicates that formations are “producing fluids and associated gas” — ie, suggesting that the hydrogen and helium us being continually produced. “This is a significant de-risking milestone for the company.”
McDonald explained: “It’s all very new to search for a non-petroleum system with hydrogen and helium. Part of this stage one was all about confirming there’s pressure, confirming there’s porosity, confirming that there’s permeability — [which was] better than we thought.”
He explained that stage two of the project will begin “around the start of the second week of July”, which will see pumps installed to extract the “formation water” present, and “lifting that water to free-flow the gas”.
“What we’ve learned from our own work is that there are better spots to drill on moving forward. We haven’t drilled in the best locations yet, even though we’ve got these really good results,” McDonald said, explaining that in mid-June, the company will initiate a 2D seismic programme “which will help confirm a multitude of further locations on this one permit area”.
“Our prospective resource is only over 25% of this permit,” he added. “So what we know is we’ve got an enormous amount of natural hydrogen and helium over a small percentage of our permit.
“It is going to the well bore, it is going to the surface, our aim is how do we optimise those flow rates, which we’re going to work on in July and onwards with further drilling.”
“We’re really de-risking this project at the moment and we look forward to flowing good commercial volumes in the future,” said McDonald.
“These things never happen in just one day or overnight, but we’re definitely getting there.”
He added that Gold Hydrogen “would like to initially turn our hydrogen into electricity as a commercialisation event or truck it to the gas pipeline” to be blended with natural gas.
Source: Hydrogeninsight Link: https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/production/astonishing-results-natural-hydrogen-purity-of-up-to-95-8-discovered-at-drill-site-in-south-australia/2-1-1651222 Author: Leigh Collins Date: 28 May 2024
