GAZPROM IS STUDYING THE POSSIBILITY OF EXTRACTING HYDROGEN FROM THE SUBSOIL OF EASTERN SIBERIA

Gazprom is studying the possibility of extracting natural hydrogen, that is, extracting hydrogen directly from the ground, in particular from deposits in Eastern Siberia. This was stated during a speech at the International Hydrogen Energy Conference (IH2CON), organized by the National Oil and Gas Forum, by Konstantin Romanov, General Director of Gazprom Hydrogen (a subsidiary of Gazprom).

Natural hydrogen is also called "white" or "golden". It is formed through natural geological processes, unlike blue hydrogen, which is produced by converting green methane produced through electrolysis and other forms of hydrogen.

Romanov said Gazprom has taken samples from several wells in the Kovyktinskoye field, plans to analyze them by the end of the year, and then begin searching for hydrogen deposits that could be used for industrial production.

“We have sampled several wells and identified hydrogen. <…> The road to the commercial component is still long, but we want to implement it as an example. I think that by the end of the year we will complete this work and move to the stage of searching for options with a higher concentration of hydrogen. <…> Now we were working with the area of the Kovyktinskoye field,” he noted.

Romanov explained that, according to the company, there are high prospects for the production of natural hydrogen in the Yakut gas production center, whose main field is Chayandinskoye, and in the center of Irkutsk, where the Kovyktinskoye field is located.

On the sidelines of the conference, Romanov explained to Vedomosti that the hydrogen samples were taken from the Kovyktinskoye field, but not from the wells where the gas is currently produced.

He also noted that producing natural hydrogen will be cheaper than producing “blue” hydrogen, “green” hydrogen and other methods of producing this gas.

As Vedomosti wrote, the roadmap for the development of hydrogen energy in Russia, approved in December 2022, envisages the production of low-carbon hydrogen by 2030 in the amount of 550,000 tons per year. The Atlas of Hydrogen Projects of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, published in 2021, lists 33 Russian projects for the production of hydrogen and ammonia in 18 regions. In subsequent documents of the Ministry of Energy, only some of them were indicated in five hydrogen clusters: in the North-West, Yamal, Eastern Siberia, Yakutia and Sakhalin.