Out in the dry of the state, there could be a best estimate prospective resource of 1.3 billion kilos of hydrogen (1.3 million tonnes), based on a basement interval of 86 metres and is currently being appraised by a new company which suggests if converted to electricity could power one million homes for 40 years. 

 

Natural, or native, hydrogen is the latest buzzword picking up steam in the Australian energy industry, though as yet commercial concentrations are yet to be found. However, since February, the state government has awarded 18 petroleum licenses for six companies looking for natural hydrogen, according to EnergyQuest. 

 

These six small companies, flying under all but the most attuned radars, have pegged an incredible 570,000sq.km—32% of South Australia. 

 

First mover Gold Hydrogen, a newly incorporated private company led by former QCG man Luke Titus, is basing initial work on two drilling reports from the 1930s from the Geological Survey of South Australia. 

 

Two wells on the Yorke Peninsula and Kangaroo Island produced samples with hydrogen concentrations of up to 90% (for reference, hydrogen's often co-located cousin helium is considered highly commercial at rates of 2%). 

 

"Gold Hydrogen was quickly formed and applied in February 2021 for PEL 687, covering 9500km-sq over most of Kangaroo Island and the southern half of Yorke Peninsula," EnergyQuest said. 

 

It already has a seven-well program planned at a total cost of $30 million, with well costs a low $1 million each owing to their shallow nature. 

 

Titus didn't come across the reports as an entire surprise: he went looking after reading a paper about an accidental hydrogen find in Brazil. 

 

The South Australian native hydrogen expansion has largely gone less noticed than nascent moves being made in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, but at June's APPEA conference in Perth, the prequel event PESA Deal Day saw South Australian government representatives explain the new structure for hydrogen permits. 

 

It is the only state that has progressed legislation to this point. 

 

Recent work by the Geological Survey of Western Australia suggests there could be potential for commercial discoveries in Australia thanks to the great age of the salt systems of up to 800 million years that seal in both hydrogen and helium which would otherwise escape thanks to miniscule molecular weight. 

 

That thick salt system in question spreads across the Amadeus Basin in the NT and possibly into WA, and is also found in the Officer Basin in WA and SA.  

 

In WA, Buru Energy has recorded concentrations of hydrogen between 4.9% and 6% at two separate Canning Basin wells using specialised Schlumberger kit. 

 

These salt seals do not extend into Buru's lands, which are closer to the coast than the centre of the country. 

 

Native hydrogen is one of the planks of the oil company's moves into new energy, along with a look for battery minerals at some of its existing oil acreage. 

 

Native hydrogen has always been understood to be vanishingly rare. The general understanding is that the universe's most abundant element does not occur naturally on Earth. Rather, it is created from splitting hydrocarbons, or in recent years using water to create a more expensive but carbon-free version. 

 

A large native hydrogen sink well was discovered in Mali several years ago, but thanks to civil strife, little further work has been done. 

 

ASX-listed Global Oil & Gas has been searching for helium and hydrogen across its Northern Territory acreage and Santos' Mt Kitty well recorded hydrogen shows seven years ago, but not in remotely commercial quantities. 

 

More recently Central Petroleum has also flagged a move into hydrogen exploration; it already sits on helium deposits at  troubled at its Dukas-1 well in the NT. Technical issues have seen the well suspended since 2019. 

 

Titus is not looking to salt seals, according to EQ, but is using a hybrid model of petroleum systems and mineral systems thinking. 

 

Like helium, hydrogen can be co-located with uranium. He believes natural hydrogen in South Australia is driven by the iron-rich and uranium-rich rocks of the Gawler Craton, specifically along the eastern margin where all of "critical success factors' come together. 

 

"The basement rocks of the Gawler Craton (with open fractures in an extensional tectonic setting) are both the source and the reservoir, sitting under a seal of Cambrian-age carbonates and evaporites," EQ said. 

 

The seven-well program would see Gold Hydrogenemonstrate commerciality by installing small electrolysers at the wellhead to produce electricity. 

 

Watch this space in the next two to three years.