The company is expanding into Saudi Arabia, aiming to deliver clean hydrogen using advanced plasma waste conversion technology to support the industry and align with Vision 2030 goals

Hydrogen Utopia International (HUI) is positioning itself as a disruptive player in the clean hydrogen market by targeting production costs of $2 per kg, a benchmark that could transform the economics of low-carbon hydrogen in heavy industry.

Its expansion into Saudi Arabia marks a major step toward achieving this goal, supported by the company’s newly granted Investment Registration Certificate (IRC) from the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia (MISA).

The IRC gives HUI full legal standing to operate in the Kingdom as a 100 per cent foreign-owned entity, allowing it to cement commercial partnerships and compete for government tenders, incentives, and R&D programmes aligned with Saudi Vision 2030.

The certification also provides the regulatory foundation HUI needs to scale its waste-to-hydrogen model within the region.

Central to HUI’s offering is the deployment of InEnTec’s TRL9 Advanced Plasma Enhanced Melter (PEM) technology, a proven system that converts complex waste streams, including plastics, tyres and hazardous materials, into high-purity hydrogen and clean syngas.

For example, a Saudi steel plant producing 4.5 million tonnes of steel annually would need around 270,000 tonnes of hydrogen to transition its direct reduced iron (DRI) process away from natural gas.

Multiple PEM systems allow HUI to scale from 20,000 tonnes to several hundred thousand tonnes per year, matching the scale required for such industrial shifts.

HUI’s strategy is aligned with Saudi Arabia’s emphasis on projects that deliver clear national value.

Producing clean hydrogen from waste offers multiple strategic advantages:

• It helps steel producers avoid the EU’s EUR160 ($185) per-tonne Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) tariff.

• It enables the generation of baseload low-carbon electricity through hydrogen fuel cells, an attractive solution for powering next-generation AI data centres, which need both reliable electricity and heat for cooling.

The modular skid-mounted system can be scaled up to 125 tonnes of waste per day per module

• It significantly reduces reliance on landfills by treating hard-to-abate waste, supporting the Kingdom’s ambitions to become one of the cleanest nations globally.

• It generates high-purity CO2 suitable for economically essential uses, such as urea production and enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

Project financing will be driven primarily by Saudi institutions, which will lead special purpose vehicles (SPVs), ensuring rapid approval and funding cycles consistent with the Kingdom’s development model.

'Securing a MISA Investment Registration Certificate represents a major step forward for HUI,' said Aleksandra Binkowska, CEO of Hydrogen Utopia International. 'It gives us a formal platform to establish operations in Saudi Arabia and to bring our proprietary circular economy technologies to one of the most ambitious clean energy markets in the world.'

HUI will be represented in the Kingdom by Iman Ramani.

BY Abdulaziz Khattak