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At the end of last year, there were 40 companies searching for natural hydrogen deposits — up from just ten in 2020, according to Norway-based Rystad Energy.

Exploration is now under way in eight countries, the analyst says — Australia, the US, Spain, France, South Korea, Canada, Colombia and Albania — but no commercially exploitable deposits have been found anywhere in the world, aside from at a small well in Mali, west Africa, that produces about five tonnes a year for electricity production in a nearby village.

However, it expects that natural hydrogen could be extracted and purified at a cost of about $1/kg — and the only current producer of geologic H2, Hydroma, which operates the Mali well, can produce it an estimated cost of $0.50/kg.