Hazer Group announced the completion of construction and commissioning activities at the Hazer commercial demonstration project (CDP) located at Woodman Point, Western Australia.

The Hazer CDP is the first fully integrated demonstration of the Hazer Process. The facility will process biogas produced from the treatment of wastewater at the Woodman Point water recovery facility to produce H₂ and graphite. The CDP is a key step in demonstrating the scale-up and commercial potential of the Hazer technology, a word leading example of methane pyrolysis, a low emission and cost-effective method to produce clean H₂.

Over the last week, construction verification activities have been completed to allow the finalization of commissioning activities by Hazer’s construction partner, Primero Group. With the successful completion of these activities, the first biogas feed is currently being introduced to the CDP marking the start of the first planned phase of operational testing of the CDP. With the completion of construction and commissioning, the plant will be handed over to the Hazer operations team to continue the first phase of the planned testing program.

The first phase of the testing program will be carried out at low temperatures using a temporary carbon steel reactor (the cold reactor). This will allow trialing of the gas conditioning, solids handling, process control, safety and utilities systems. This phase will also deliver initial process data to de-risk the start-up of the second phase, the hot commissioning and full operation of the CDP.

Construction of the hot-wall Hazer reactor is progressing at the manufacturing mill in China. While there has been some delay incurred due to covid-related restrictions in the Shanghai area, we are still targeting the delivery of the reactor to Australia for final fabrication and fit-out activities to be achieved in Q3. We expect the hot-reactor to be installed at the CDP in Q4 2022 to allow us to maintain our current target of producing H₂ and graphite before the end of 2022.

The planned rigorous testing schedule will demonstrate the continuous operation of the process with the full integration of all required sub-systems for scale-up to commercial operations. The program will derive the engineering data (including confirmation of fluidization characteristics at larger scale, heat-transfer parameters and carbon emission parameters) necessary to support the scale-up of the process. The full operation of the project will demonstrate the safe continuous production of low-emission hydrogen and graphite.

Geoff Ward, Chief Executive Officer of Hazer Group said, “We are delighted to have reached this important milestone. I would like to recognize the hard work of Mark Edwards, Hazer’s Chief Operating Officer, and all the project team to realize this significant achievement. I would like to thank the team from Primero, our engineering and construction partner, for their hard work to deliver the construction program safely and effectively. I would, in particular, like to recognize the teamwork of all involved in completing the construction without any safety or environmental incidents – an outstanding achievement in challenging conditions in a complex environment for a first-of-kind project. I look forward to completing the testing program and continuing to demonstrate the capacity of the Hazer technology to play a significant role at large scale in achieving our critical global decarbonization goals.”