Geo40’s History
Geo40 Limited was originally incorporated as Environmetals Limited (EVM) in July 2010 by founding directors, Mike O’Sullivan and Matt Sutcliffe.
EVM was the brainchild of Mike O’Sullivan who identified the opportunity in New Zealand to sustainably recover valuable minerals from the geothermal fluids that are being used to generate geothermal power. Mike already had significant international resource industry experience and Matt brought expertise in international financial markets.
The first metal targeted was lithium. However, initial test-work on the silica-rich geothermal fluids from the Wairakei geothermal field in New Zealand clearly demonstrated that the high-silica levels would adversely affect any attempts to recover the lithium, which was in much lower concentrations.
As a result, the focus of the Company was redirected to developing a technology to remove the silica first, before attempting to recover the lithium and other valuable elements.
In fact, the high levels of silica in many geothermal fields around the world have been a significant problem for many geothermal power operators for many years, resulting in reduced capacity to generate power, a shortening of the life of reinjection wells, and generally higher operating and maintenance costs.
In 2013, Murray Hosking, Adam Peren, Bill Turner and Peter Bradford all joined the Board adding international resource industry and New Zealand business skills and experience. Prior to becoming a Board member, Adam Peren worked with Mike O’Sullivan on identifying a suitable project site and establishing a Project Development Framework Agreement with Contact Energy.
Following a significant amount of initial laboratory-scale test-work on the fluid from the Contact Energy’s Wairakei geothermal field, by 2013, the Company found itself in a position to build a Pilot Plant (100tpd geothermal fluid throughput), which was commissioned in early 2014, to test its newly developed silica-recovery technology, which had been developed with the support of technical expertise from the USA.
In 2014, John Lea joined the Board as Managing Director & CEO bringing New Zealand business experience.
What followed on from the successful operation of that plant at Wairakei, was follow-up testing on several different geothermal fluids at other sites in New Zealand controlled by Norske Skog, Mercury (2015-17) and a second Contact Energy site, Ohaaki (2017-18). This work demonstrated the flexibility of this world-first, silica extraction technology that Geo40 had developed.
In early 2016, the Company was invited to build a second Pilot Plant for deployment to the Kakkonda Geothermal Field in Japan, to test the Company’s technology on another silica-rich and lithium bearing geothermal fluid. This plant operated from late 2016-17 and was successful in demonstrating that Geo40’s silica recovery technology was also adaptable to that particular geothermal fluid. Furthermore, the work concluded that this new technology could also increase the longevity of those geothermal reinjection wells by some 500%. The project was undertaken with the full financial support of NEDO[1] and GERD[2].
Murray Hosking and Matt Sutcliffe stepped down from the Board in late 2016 to pursue other technology-related business interests. Matt Sutcliffe co-founded Singapore-based Pelleton Renewables Pte Ltd which has developed a world-first technology that non thermally produces pellets from biomass for use in biofuel and fertilizer applications. Murray and Matt also co-founded its partly owned subsidiary Moxiepel Ltd, which is rolling out the technology in Australia/New Zealand.
In mid-2017, Mike O’Sullivan stepped down from the Board to allow him to concentrate on the Company’s technology developments.
[1] New Energy & Industrial Technology Development Organisation.
[2] Geothermal Energy Research & Development Co., Ltd.
By mid-2017, following Pilot Study work, Geo40 was in a position to design and build the Ngāwhā Demonstration Plant (800tpa fluid throughput) at Ohaaki.
This plant was commissioned in early 2018 and was used to not only demonstrate that the technology could be progressively scaled up, but for the first time, to be able to make valuable low-carbon, nano-particle colloidal silica products for a wide range of industrial applications.
Euroz (now Euroz Hartleys) supported the Company to do a capital raising in October 2017 which enabled it to proceed with this development. Prior to this capital raising, the name of the Company had been changed from Environmetals Ltd to Geo40 Ltd.
In early 2018, Dr Joanne Warner and Paul Smart joined the Board adding significant international resource industry technical and financial skills and experience. Adam Peren stepped down from the Board in mid-2018 to focus on other business interests, including his vineyard in the South Island.
In mid-2018, the Company took the next step in its staged development approach by designing the Ohaaki Northern Plant (6,700tpd fluid throughput).
In September 2019, John Worth was appointed as CEO to position the Company for the future, succeeding John Lea, who had spent more than five years in that role. In 2020, John Worth joined the Board, becoming CEO and Managing Director.
Ohaaki Northern Plant, New Zealand
In October 2019, the Company committed to the construction of the Ohaaki Northern Plant. This $20 million plant build was completed in early 2021 and following some not-unexpected technical modifications, which emerged during commissioning, reached full throughput capacity in November 2021.
The funding of this $20 million development was strongly supported by the NZ Government’s Provincial Growth Fund (now Kānoa) and a capital raising led by CEO John Worth and NZ stockbroker Jarden. Geo40’s Ohaaki Northern Plant is approximately one kilometre from the Ohaaki Demonstration Plant and both plants are located on Ngāti Tahu Tribal Lands Trust lands, whose people are closely engaged in Geo40’s business activities.
It is important to note that Geo40 adopted this staged development approach, in order to reduce the technical and financial risks associated with developing and commercialising what is effectively a world-first technology development. As a result, the Company has demonstrated its capacity to tackle and succeed in not only solving technical challenges (silica scaling as a first step) that negatively affect the operational performance of many of the world’s geothermal power plants, but in doing so, has been able to firstly, sustainably produce valuable, low-carbon, nano-particle colloidal silica products for a range of industrial applications, and secondly enhance the capacity to recover other valuable metals, including lithium. Over time, we will target other metals on the Critical Minerals list.
In mid-2021, following substantial encouraging laboratory test-work in house and with the support of expert consultants in the USA, New Zealand venture capital group Pacific Channel and the Government’s Kānoa (formerly the Provincial Growth Fund) entered discussions to support the Company to take the next step towards finalising the Company’s lithium recovery technology.
It should be noted that Pacific Channel is a New Zealand fund that specifically targets “ground-breaking science and deep-tech companies in New Zealand”. This lithium work is now being led by Mike O’Sullivan, Technical Director, which by 2022 is expected to enable the design and construction of a Lithium Pilot Plant (Stage I) to test lithium bearing fluids, not only from New Zealand, but also higher-grade fluids, sourced from a number of attractive overseas projects.
Geo40 also has research work on caesium currently being undertaken at specialist laboratory in the USA.
Geo40 is more than an innovative technology company. It not only can develop new technologies for recovering metals from geothermal fluids, but it can also design, build and operate such plants. The value proposition can be broadly described as the sustainable, low-carbon recovery of valuable metals from geothermal fluids, particularly those fluids used to generate geothermal power.
However, Geo40’s silica recovery technology not only addresses the problematic silica-scaling issue affecting many of the world’s geothermal power plants, but in time, and with additional development work, is expected to be the enabler to generate additional geothermal power from the same fluid prior to reinjection (with the addition of a Binary Plant), and sequester CO2 when silica-depleted geothermal fluids are reinjected back into the aquifer.
As a result, the strong environmental credentials of the Company are expected to continue to build over time, as each component of Geo40’s future value chain is progressively added.
