Caterpillar Inc. has announced the results of a hydrogen demonstration project commissioned by EQT Corp., one of the largest producers of natural gas in the US, which evaluated the performance of a land drilling power module fuelled by varying blends of diesel, CNG and hydrogen.
As part of the Caterpillar commitment to build a better, more sustainable world, experts from Caterpillar worked with EQT and Cat dealer Cleveland Brothers to design and manage a bench test and three-week demonstration. Two wells were drilled with a fuel consisting of hydrogen blended with CNG supplied by Certarus Energy. The demonstration, which was conducted on Patterson-UTI’s land drilling rig in Greene County, Pennsylvania, US, and involved utilising a 1 MW Cat ® 3512C land drilling module with dynamic gas blending (DGBTM) technology, confirmed the performance of hydrogen as a viable fuel across a series of steady-state and transient operational test points. The use of hydrogen blended with CNG also enabled a reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
The project identified areas for future development, including the evaluation of the long-term effects of hydrogen combustion on engine components, acceptable hydrogen limits for broader deployment, hardware and software customisation, and the identification of applicable regulatory certifications.
Caterpillar Oil & Gas is ready to support the oilfield of the future, and understands that operations will require more power, more uptime, and more insight. This test highlights the support and focus from Caterpillar to provide customers with a customised solution to help them meet their environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.
EQT has a long-standing commitment to ESG and has pledged to achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from production segment operations on a Scope 1 and Scope 2 basis by or before 2025. This recent project is just one of several ESG initiatives designed to help EQT advance towards reaching that goal.
“As an operator of choice focused on delivering long-term value for all our stakeholders, we have embraced our role as a catalyst for transforming technology, culture and environmental performance, and this demonstration project was an important step forward in understanding the viability of hydrogen as a fuel in a production environment,” said Jared Lowery, Principal Drilling Engineer at EQT. “For decades, we have depended on the reliability, durability and consistency of Cat power solutions at our production sites, which is why we selected Caterpillar and Cleveland Brothers to spearhead this demonstration project on our journey toward a reduced carbon future.”
The demonstration project is the latest in a series of initiatives across the Caterpillar enterprise to develop and commercialise hydrogen-fuelled power solutions. In May 2022, Caterpillar announced a project with District Energy St. Paul to demonstrate a 2.0 MW combined heat and power (CHP) system fuelled by various combinations of hydrogen and natural gas.
Caterpillar has begun offering demonstrator Cat G3516H generator sets capable of operating on 100% hydrogen, including fully renewable green hydrogen, on a designed-to-order basis. Additionally, Caterpillar offers commercially-available power generation solutions from 400 kW to 4.5 MW that can be configured to operate on natural gas blended with up to 25% hydrogen.
In 2021, Chevron USA Inc., a subsidiary of Chevron Corp., and Caterpillar announced a collaboration agreement to develop hydrogen demonstration projects in transportation and stationary power applications, including prime power. The goal of the collaboration is to confirm the feasibility and performance of hydrogen for use as a commercially-viable alternative to traditional fuels for line-haul rail and marine vessels.
“Caterpillar is serving as a trailblazer in the use of hydrogen and other lower carbon fuels for power solutions across numerous markets and applications,” said Matt O’Sullivan, Caterpillar Oil & Gas General Manager. “Our collaboration with EQT and Cleveland Brothers shows how we can support our customers in the energy markets by reducing their environmental impacts and helping them lead their industries in the energy transition.”