London-listed power agency in talks over Saudi gas website

A London-listed energy firm is in talks with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund about plans to build a £600 million site in the desert kingdom to convert waste plastic into jet fuel, diesel and petrol.

Hydrogen Utopia International (HUI) has developed a technology that avoids the fuel supply chains thrown into chaos by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Company executives will meet Saudi officials in Riyadh this week to discuss the project, the details of which will be set out in a stock exchange announcement on Tuesday.

It is understood the Saudi public investment fund will provide most of the money although HUI will own a fifth of the project and keep control of its technology, which heats waste plastic to between 5,000C and 10,000C without mains electricity or water.

Plans: London-listed Hydrogen Utopia International has developed a technology that avoids the fuel supply chains thrown into chaos by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz

Plastic is broken down into hydrogen, carbon and oxygen to be re-formed into fuel, while making gas as a by-product to keep the reaction going. HUI executive chairman Howard White said the system avoided a flaw in alternative hydrogen proposals – the reliance on ‘continuous electricity, water and infrastructure’.

‘In a conflict, those are the first things taken out’, he said. The technology has both civilian and military uses.

And, White said, it ‘effectively allows military bases or remote facilities to produce their own fuel… and be completely self-sufficient for energy.’

Sites would need to stockpile waste plastic in advance but could then run without supplies for up to 12 months.