Parkway technology points the way for a truly circular economy in the CSG industry

Australian cleantech company Parkway Corporate (ASX: PWN; FRA: 4IP), which specializes in industrial wastewater treatment, is showing the multi-billion dollar coal seam gas industry in Queensland (CSG industry) for the first time a realistic pathway on how it could switch from the current “disposal” of problematic residual brines to a genuine circular economy.

As Parkway has now announced, the company’s researchers have succeeded for the first time in electrochemically producing the industrially valuable product hydrochloric acid (HCl) from residual brine from coal seam gas extraction. Parkway calls it a technological breakthrough in its Queensland Brine Solutions (QBS) master plan and is confident that its innovative process scheme will be progressively adopted by industry as best available technology (BAT). The Queensland Government already commits the coal seam gas industry to the sustainable management of its residual brines, with the first priority for saline waste management being that “brine or salt residues are treated to produce usable products wherever possible”.

The brines produced during coal seam gas extraction are considered to be highly complex and must therefore first be converted into clean brine and salt streams as a first step. Parkway achieves this in its up-stream process, which prepares the residual brine for further processing in the first place. This process was already the subject of a successful feasibility study commissioned by Shell subsidiary QGC Pty Limited. The process step now presented converts the clean brine pre-treated by Parkway into valuable industrial chemical products in a downstream step, with recent analysis from the pilot trials confirming that the entire clean brine stream (NaCl) could be successfully converted into caustic soda (NaOH) and hydrochloric acid (HCl). This production of mineral acids and caustic soda opens up significant opportunities for the mining, downstream mineral processing and refining industries worldwide.

Figure 1: The Queensland Brine Solutions (QBS) master plan aims to make the best economic use of residual brines from the coal seam gas industry.

Queensland predicts shortage of industrial acids

A recently published study on acid supply commissioned by the Queensland Government predicts a foreseeable shortage of industrial acids. According to the study, demand for sulphuric acid in Queensland is expected to more than double (possibly triple) over the next decade, driven by several existing and emerging industries, including a growing number of major minerals projects. While Parkway’s salt splitting technology is also suitable for sulphuric acid production (assuming sulphate ions are present in the raw brine), the Queensland Government’s Acid Supply Study identified hydrochloric acid as a potential replacement for sulphuric acid in certain critical minerals applications.

CSG industry in Queensland is growing rapidly

Meanwhile, the CSG industry in Queensland continues to grow. Several significant additional investments in Queensland’s CSG industry have been approved in the last few months alone. On June 26, 2024, Senex Energy (owned by POSCO International and Hancock Prospecting) announced that it will embark on an expansion of its Atlas and Roma North natural gas deposits in Queensland’s Surat Basin worth more than $1 billion. On August 12, 2024, Arrow Energy (Shell and PetroChina JV) announced that it had committed to a multi-billion dollar Phase 2 expansion of the Surat Gas Project, also in Queensland.

Review of potential sites in Queensland already underway

Parkway is currently reviewing several strategically located project sites in Queensland in collaboration with existing and potential customers and strategic partners. Potential sites under review include locations close to both upstream and downstream CSG operations, as well as locations close to key markets for the products expected to be produced by the facilities associated with the Master Plan. In the coming months, Parkway intends to initiate a formal partnering process for QBS given the high-level of industry interest.

Conclusion: With the recent integration of the established Tankweld Group, Parkway has finally established itself as a commercially sound, integrated problem solver for industrial wastewater. Now, thanks to its technological edge, the company is providing the multi-billion dollar coal seam gas industry with a tailor-made solution on a silver platter. With the industry and regulators in mind, Parkway has been successfully pursuing a strategy of push and pull since the publication of its master plan around a year ago. Parkway systematically demonstrates its growing solution expertise and thus secures the growing interest of its customers in “strong alignment with the industry”. The company therefore confidently assumes that its approach will gradually be adopted by the industry as best available technology (BAT). Apparently, the stock market still needs some time to realize the enormous long-term growth potential of this announcement. Nevertheless, the share has reacted to the publication of the latest technology update with improved trading volumes, with the share price unchanged at AUD 0.09. We eagerly await several upcoming milestones, including the announced formal partnering process for QBS.