Natural hydrogen (hydrogen sourced directly from the earth) as a concept has only recently made the jump from Academia to the resources industry, but many geologists think it could be the answer to the energy decarbonisation crisis.
Avon McIntyre, executive director and chief technical officer of Hyterra Ltd (ASX:HYT), has been studying natural hydrogen for more than half a decade.
“Natural hydrogen is, in a word, disruptive,” McIntyre said.
“There’s an increasing demand for clean energy and hydrogen as an actual fuel source, rather than as a fuel vector, is pretty much the holy grail of what we're looking for in terms of energy, especially baseline energy supply.”
In this article:
- Endless inquiry; unquenchable curiosity
- Natural hydrogen, more than just a novelty
- Pioneering a new energy frontier
Endless inquiry; unquenchable curiosity
“Every geologist’s career is unsatisfied curiosity,” he laughed.
“There’s always something strange, something unresolved in the data or some geological process you don’t fully understand.
“There’s always some area you never got around to look at, some different rock type you don’t understand, there’s just this limitless panorama of things out there to be curious about.”
That curiosity has been a driving force for McIntyre during his career and would ultimately be what led him into the hydrogen industry.
Avon McIntyre has had a wide-ranging career in the resources and gas and oil industry, starting in 2003 as a field geologist for Geoscience Australia.
After four years studying Mt Isa and the Eastern Pilbara cratons, McIntyre made the jump to the private sector, serving as a seismic interpreter at Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) for almost two years before he began a 13-year stint at Shell (LON:RDSa).
Natural hydrogen, more than just a novelty
At Shell, McIntyre worked in Australia new ventures, then moved to Shell HQ in The Hague, Netherlands, to work on global unconventional resource screening, and East African regional geology before returning to Australia to focus on 'tertiary delta' and 'deepwater' exploration in Southeast Asia.
“I’ve always been a junkie for geological processes,” McIntyre chuckled.
“When I was working for Shell in The Hague, there was a stint where I was able to do whatever I liked for about 18 months in 2015-2016.
“I came across these occurrences of hydrogen in the subsurface, which was absolutely fascinating because it wasn't something that normally features in the gas compositions for oil and gas.
“I thought, ‘what's this all about?’
“It was one of those situations where you had to go beyond the data, beyond the current understanding to find out what’s actually going on here.”
“Back in Australia, Shell was very accommodating in allowing me to follow my hydrogen 'hobby' outside of my day job using my own time and resources.
“During that time, I travelled to Paris in 2019 to attend the first-ever natural hydrogen conference – all in French! – and meet the other pioneers exploring this topic.”
Hydrogen, specifically natural hydrogen, is very much a new frontier in geology.
Although we’ve been aware of the molecule and its properties for more than 200 years, it was only in the last decade or so that we discovered it could occur in large natural – and potentially economical – reservoirs.
Read: Natural hydrogen: A passing curiosity, or energy disruptor?
“So, when the opportunity came to branch out into a smaller company, I was very happy to do that, because that’s where the innovation happens.
“I wanted to ensure that the previous six or seven years of research and thinking I’d done on natural hydrogen could actually be put to use and tested.”
Pioneering a new energy frontier
“Junior explorers have to be innovative. You’re not going to compete with the larger companies in terms of scale, or efficiency and so forth. You’ve got to do something new and different,” McIntyre explained.
HyTerra’s goals are certainly new, and certainly different.
One of only a handful of companies targeting natural hydrogen reserves – and the first natural hydrogen company to list on the ASX – HyTerra is working alongside US-based company Natural Hydrogen Energy LLC to advance a joint venture project in Nebraska and South Carolina called Project Geneva.
Project Geneva is one of the world’s first wildcat hydrogen exploration efforts, pioneering the search for the elusive gas in untested areas of Nebraska and the greater United States.
HyTerra and JV partner Natural Hydrogen Energy LLC are already preparing for flow tests at its Hoarty NE3 well, data from which will provide vital information outlining the well’s hydrogen content and flow potential.
If a hydrogen resource can be established on Project Geneva, the JV intends to offload the gas to nearby markets and consumers, offsetting the need for complex transportation infrastructure and compression technology.
“I’d like to see hydrogen replace oil and gas, especially for baseload power,” McIntyre said.
“People often fail to comprehend the sheer size of the oil and gas industry and the energy budget that we get from it.
“I’m under no illusions natural hydrogen is going to come along and displace that anytime in the near future, but a few years from now, who knows?
“If we can demonstrate technical and commercial success, it seems a natural progression.”
An established natural hydrogen industry could achieve more than just replacing fossil fuels as our base load energy source, the energy-dense gas also has wide-reaching implications for state sovereignty, especially in the current geopolitical climate.
“The areas we suspect are prospective for hydrogen are not necessarily locations where we have had energy sources in the past,” McIntyre explained.
“That becomes a new paradigm to consider, around energy security potentially, where countries that maybe had no energy or very little energy sources, now suddenly may find themselves in a position where there is plenty of accessible power.
“Even in large countries, there might be locations which are not particularly thought to be energy, oil and gas prospective, that could be hydrogen prospective.
“It has the potential to disrupt not only the clean energy landscape, but also the energy security landscape, but we need to scale into all that.
“It’s early days.”
What natural hydrogen needs now, is good hard data and investment. The energy market is primed and waiting, and it’s up to explorers and developers like HyTerra to deliver the goods.
“Our greatest strength is that we’re actually doing this, right now,” McIntyre emphasised.
“We have holes in the ground, we’ve started testing the well, we’re actively developing our subsurface understanding and exploration models, all the time.
“That will allow us, in future, to improve our targeting, identify prospective areas, and really lead the natural hydrogen industry by getting it done on the ground.
“That’s possible because of a combination of us having a project in the US where things can happen quickly and with much lower costs than many other regions.
“We can advance these projects in the US probably 5-10 times more quickly than we could in say, Australia, where you’ve got a lot more processes between what the operator wants to do and what the operator can actually do.
“That’s a big part of why I joined Hyterra; I could see that if you want to get something done in a hurry, this is the place to be.”
While no one can predict which energy source will replace hydrocarbons in the near future, hydrogen – and particularly natural hydrogen – is shaping up to be a strong contender.