A North American mining investor has put his money behind an Australian company that has made a major hydrogen discovery on the Yorke Peninsula that rivals some of the best findings in the world.
ASX-listed Gold Hydrogen this week announced that Canadian billionaire Eric Sprott – a mining investor who mostly backs gold, silver and junior mining stocks – has invested $4 million into the Australian company chaired by former Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer.
The investment is part of a larger $7.94 million capital raise for the company, whose CEO this week announced a “major breakthrough” in discovering underground natural hydrogen.
South Australian-based Chair Alexander Downer said Gold Hydrogen hoped the new funds would help build a pilot modular helium plant over the next 18 months that would be powered by the discovered hydrogen.
This gives the company “multiple pathways to commercialisation”, Downer said.
“Dozens of companies worldwide are hunting for natural hydrogen and while some have found hydrogen underground, other than Mali, none have been able to capture and use this notoriously hard to trap gas,” Downer said.
Unlike green hydrogen, made by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, natural hydrogen is extracted directly from the earth in underground “geological kitchens”, Gold Hydrogen executive vice president Simon Talbot said.
The state government in 2025 shelved its own plans to generate green hydrogen at a facility near Whyalla, redistributing the funds to prop up a Whyalla Steelworks package.
Gold Hydrogen announced that testing of its Yorke Peninsula well confirmed the potential for natural hydrogen production of more than 100kg per day per well. Just 100kg per day is enough to power a hydrogen truck travelling from Adelaide to Melbourne return.
And it is also enough natural hydrogen to support a large-scale plant to turn the gas into liquefied fuel, the company said.
The company said that “outside of Mali, Africa, Gold Hydrogen is unaware of any results of this magnitude”.
And according to Gold Hydrogen, the area tested west of Port Vincent covers less than three per cent of the exploration zone of 75,000 square kilometres.
Managing director Neil McDonald said the area “could support production in the order of 20,000 tonnes, or more than 20 million litres, of green methanol every year”.
“That is a scale of plant with genuine commercial relevance, and it is underpinned by hydrogen that does not need to be manufactured,” he said.
And it is not just hydrogen the company is extracting, but helium too.
The gas – recently placed on the Critical Minerals list by the United States – is crucial in hospital and healthcare settings, used for more than just party balloons.
Just two weeks ago, Gold Hydrogen announced results from helium testing from the same wells on the Yorke Peninsula and achieved “world-leading purities”.
“Helium is in global demand, and Australia doesn’t produce any,” Talbot said.
“Your hospital systems literally shut down without helium. Your MRI systems don’t run without helium; a lot of your ICU gas systems, lung, heart and eye surgery systems all require helium.”
The global supply chain for helium is also “completely fragmented”, Talbot said, and two of Russia’s large helium production plants were recently destroyed by Ukrainian forces.
Talbot said that the company also hoped to construct a natural hydrogen-driven generator to power operations on the site to accelerate the production of helium.
“Why would we build our own power poles and connect to the grid if we can generate our own energy,” he said.
“The good news is we’re starting to generate our own income.
“Helium is intermediate and a great business model. The big business model is to continue to invest in hydrogen and get that large project up.”
