Australian company Hazer Group has announced it has signed a binding Project Development Agreement with FortisBC Energy to pursue the development of a hydrogen production facility in Canada.
The project, to be based in British Columbia, comprises a Hazer production facility with a design capacity of up to 2,500 tonnes per annum of clean hydrogen and approximately 9,500 tpa of Hazer graphite.
This is a scale-up of 25 times on the Company’s Commercial Demonstration Plant in Western Australia.
The Canadian Project is planned as Hazer’s first commercial-scale plant to produce low-cost, low-emissions hydrogen and graphite.
Leading Canadian energy utility, FortisBC, will lead the development of the project as well as supply the natural gas feedstock to the project.
FortisBC intends to sell the hydrogen from the facility to industrial customers in the Vancouver region to help support British Columbia’s emissions reduction target strategy.
Hazer’s CEO and MD Glenn Corrie said he was delighted to cement the company’s relationship with FortisBC.
“Canada is a strategic location for the deployment of Hazer technology with abundant, low-cost gas, low-carbon intensity electricity and strong government support. The planned construction of the plant in Canada marks an important milestone for our company and it provides validation of our proposed business model.
With the successful start-up and operation of our Commercial Demonstration Plant, this announcement is the next step in Hazer’s commercialisation strategy. Assuming our position as the core technology provider for the project substantially de-risks Hazer’s position and consolidates our capex-lite business model,” said Corrie.
This agreement follows the successful start-up of Hazer’s Commercial Demonstration Plant in Western Australia and the ongoing performance test program which continues to deliver results in-line with expectations.
To secure alignment for the Project, the parties have agreed commercial principles to frame the negotiation of the key definitive agreements.
This includes a technology licence agreement, technology commercialisation agreement, and engineering services agreement.
Importantly, Hazer is not only providing the process technology for the Project but will also lead the engineering activities relating to the core Hazer technology components.
Under the engineering services agreement, FortisBC will pay Hazer for engineering and design work as well as support to regulate project development activities.
With the initial phase of the Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) study, carried out by Wood Plc, now complete, the main components of the design basis for the 2,500 tpa plant are in place.
Once the selection of the new project site is finalised, the FEED study will be refined and completed to reflect the integration of the new project location.
The fully integrated FEED study is targeted for completion in late 2024 and together with definitive commercial agreements will form the basis for submission of the project application to the regulator in 1H 2025.
As previously announced on 28 April 2022, FortisBC has received provincial government funding through the CleanBC grant program to pursue the development of the project.