Hazer Group flags six-month delay for delivery of CDP reactor vessel hydrogen project.
Hazer Group (HZR) updates progress on the Hazer Commercial Demonstration Project, currently under construction at the Woodman Point Water Recovery Facility in WA.
On 10 December 2021, a defect was identified in the reactor vessel being manufactured in China for the Hazer CDP Project, resulting in the vessel being unsuitable for use.
This piece of equipment is a specialised bespoke design, utilising advanced alloy steel that is suitable for the temperature, pressure and process conditions of the Hazer Process.
Following this event, the Hazer team, the company’s supplier and the manufacturing mill in China have reviewed the cause of the manufacturing failure and determined improvements to the proposed manufacturing method and scope.
Amongst other changes, Hazer has reduced the size of the proposed forging and will now manufacture the reactor in two sections which will be welded together in the final fitting.
This reduction in forging length will reduce the risk of the manufacturing defect encountered in the first manufacture being repeated.
Hazer has approved the remaking of the reactor vessel and expects that the reactor will be completed and shipped for delivery to Australia around July 2022, approximately six months later than the original schedule.
The CDP is a key step in demonstrating the scale-up and commercialization of the Hazer technology.
The project program includes a rigorous testing schedule that will demonstrate the continuous operation of the process with the full integration of all required sub-systems and derive the engineering data 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.
The Hazer team has reviewed the program for the completion of the construction of the CDP, the commissioning plan and the proposed testing and operations program for the CDP to determine an optimised staged commissioning and testing process that reduces operational risk, and maximises the value of early data.
This testing program will be broken into multiple phases. The first phase will be carried out at reduced temperatures using a temporary carbon steel reactor.
Based on the current activities, the company expects that the completion of CDP construction and installation of the initial carbon steel cold reactor will be achieved by mid-2022.
The additional manufacturing activities and the inclusion of the carbon steel reactor to allow the staged commissioning of the project will result in additional costs of approximately $1 million. Thanks for staying up to date with Hydrogen Central.
With these additional costs and continued cost pressures due to strong demand for materials and resources in Western Australia, the company anticipates that the final completed cost of the project will be at the top end of our previously indicated range of $23 million to $25 million.
CEO Geoff Ward said:
We are determined to deliver a rigorous program that will allow the scale-up of our technology to accelerate to meet the increasing global demand for low carbon hydrogen, and solutions to the decarbonisation of heavy industrial processes
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Hazer Group (ASX:HZR) flags six-month delay for delivery of CDP reactor vessel, 21 Jan 2022