The parties will work together to develop the design of a natural hydrogen pilot plant, subject to the results of the company’s maiden drilling campaign - which is also set to be Australia's first hydrogen well.
The ‘concept’ is that natural hydrogen can be produced from the subsurface as part of a raw gas stream and then that raw gas can be processed at the surface to yield a high-purity hydrogen gas that can be used as an energy source.
MoUs summary
The MoUs outline how the company will work with Wasco Energy and H2Site to review the suitability of current hydrogen purification systems to facilitate a saleable hydrogen product to be compressed on-site.
As a proof-of-concept, the compressed hydrogen could then be sold into the local market or used for power generation (eg via a hydrogen fuel cell).
This would represent an important step in the process of enabling the full potential of the Ramsay area to be evaluated from a commercial perspective and would also create the first natural hydrogen pilot plant in Australia.
Maiden drill campaign
Drilling operations on the first dedicated natural hydrogen exploration well in Australia, Ramsay 1, were completed on October 28, 2023.
The well reached a total depth of 1,005 metres measured depth (MD).
Mud gas samples collected from the levels above the top of a complex limestone fracture zone encountered at 316mMD showed air-corrected hydrogen levels of up to 73.3%, with the highest level measured from a sample collected from 240mMD.
