Value: N/A.

Area: ESG.  

Key players: The Clayton Utz team led by partners Hiroyuki Kano, Steve O’Reilly and Andrew Leece assisted industry participants on all legal aspects of the project to date.

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Deal significance: The HESC project was developed to create a supply chain for low-emissions hydrogen, for which Clayton Utz has acted as Australian counsel since 2013.

Under the HESC project, a pilot plant was built to produce liquefied hydrogen from coal from the Loy Yang mine in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. Kawasaki Heavy Industries’ (KHI) wholly owned subsidiary Hydrogen Engineering Australia (HEA) is co-ordinating the project. Other consortium members include J-Power, Iwatani Corporation, Marubeni Corporation, Sumitomo Corporation and AGL. 

Mr Kano, who attended a live-streamed ceremony to mark the project’s export milestone, said it was exciting to see the HESC project progress to export hydrogen produced and liquefied in Australia to Japan.

“We congratulate all the parties involved on this significant first step in creating a hydrogen export market,” he said.

“As more countries face challenges in how they adapt to a new global energy future, and with liquefied hydrogen’s potential as a low-carbon energy source, projects such as HESC will help them rise to meet these challenges.”