Canadian firm to extract hydrogen from oilfields

Canada-based Proton Technologies said June 9 it was working on ways to extract hydrogen from mature oilfields using injections of oxygen and CO₂.

Grant Strem, the CEO of Proton Technologies, said his company was envisioning costs as low as 25 cents/kg of hydrogen, far lower than current rates of around $5/kg.

Proton has been injecting oxygen and CO₂ into older oilfields, a process that it said liberates the hydrogen while leaving carbon embedded underground.

“Our hydrogen should ultimately have a carbon intensity far below zero since we can inject huge volumes of CO₂ with oxygen,” Strem said.

Other Canadian companies are getting into the hydrogen game. Last month, Canadian integrated oil and gas producer Suncor Energy and Alberta utility ATCO said they were in the early design and engineering stages for a project near Edmonton that would produce 300,000 mt/yr of blue hydrogen and reduce the province’s CO₂ emissions by more than 2mn mt/yr.

In addition, Suncor said, the project would “significantly advance” Alberta’s hydrogen strategy, generate substantial economic activity and jobs across the province and make a sizeable contribution to Canada’s net-zero aspirations.

“We plan to scale-up and proliferate quickly as possible because air pollution is a crisis that Proton Technologies expects to help eradicate while crushing the price of energy and making great returns,” added Strem.