The Brisbane based company, which has former Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer as chair, announced recently that its drilling at the Ramsay project had revealed high purity levels of up to 73 per cent hydrogen plus helium purity levels at 3.6 per cent.

Shares in the company were up another 10 per cent yesterday to 50 cents after it released its investor presentation. That represents a jump 100 per cent in the past month.

However, that only gets the company back to its float price at the start of the year.

Naturally occurring hydrogen occurs at depth with iron rich rocks where the electrolysis occurs naturally.

It said the Ramsay project reservoir may extend to 5km of depth with historical occurrences of up to 84 per cent hydrogen.

The company believed it could deliver hydrogen at $1 a kilogram compared with the current price of green hydrogen at about $7 to $10.

It has been known for some time that naturally occurring (known as gold hydrogen) hydrogen exists but it was not considered a commercial gas.

However, the race to develop a hydrogen industry in Australia has changed that and Gold Hydrogen has told investors that it offers significant cost and emission advantages. Finding helium has been a bonus and Gold said they  were considered to be potentially commercial at 1 per cent purity or less.

In the US companies are trying to produce hydrogen from depleted oil wells by adding a bacteria to it. It has also been discovered in France when a company was drilling for methane.

Gold Hydrogen’s investor presentation said the annual investment in hydrogen in 2030 was expected to be $184 billion and $629 billion in 2050.

Gold has also signed two memorandums of understanding which would enable the fast tracking of a proof of concept pilot plant.

It would test the concept that if natural hydrogen can be produced from the subsurface as part of a raw gas stream, then that raw gas can be processes at a surface plant to yield a high purity hydrogen.