Prabhdeep Singh Sekhon’s career has taken him around the world, from his hometown outside of Calgary, Canada, to West Africa.
Now he’s taking the reins at a new company, one that brings his background in traditional oil and gas together with a new method of hydrogen production.
Last week, Sekhon was named CEO of Gold H2, a spinout company using technology developed by Houston-based Cemvita. Founded by Moji and Tara Karimi, Cemvita uses a library of microbes to turn carbon dioxide emissions into feedstocks for fuel and other products, but the company has begun spinning off business units that use the same microbes in the production of hydrogen or in mining processes.
For Sekhon, the opportunity was unmissable. He had most recently spent time at Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources, heading up the company’s strategy and new business development team. That had opened his mind to hydrogen and got him thinking about the ways the oil and gas business could intersect with its production.
“I think Gold H2 is that perfect bridge between Houston’s past and Houston’s future,” Sekhon said. “You've got this legacy of the oil city that is putting a tremendous amount of capital and resources into retaining that crown of being an energy leader in the renewable space and the future energy economy. That’s the bridge Gold H2 provides.”
Meanwhile, hydrogen interest in Houston is heating up. Billions of dollars in federal funding are going toward the HyVelocity Hub project, and major companies are investing significantly in their own hydrogen production.
Sekhon sat down with the Houston Business Journal to discuss his goals as CEO of Gold H2.
What brought you to Gold H2 at this point of your career?
I had been thinking a lot about the hydrogen rainbow, if you will. It was becoming clear that green hydrogen had some headwinds within the Inflation Reduction Act because of clarifications that came out. But I was thinking, 'What are other clean ways to generate hydrogen?' I had known about Cemvita for a little while; I had talked to Moji a few times.
When I saw the price point where [gold hydrogen] will lead to, it was just so much more favorable, versus the rest of these hydrogen counterparts, that I just had to dig in. And when I saw what they were doing, using depleted oil and gas reservoirs to generate a new value stream, I thought it was a brilliant marriage of this legacy oil and gas era and this new era of hydrogen.
What are your first priorities?
We're very close to closing our [funding round]. We've raised all the capital that we absolutely need, but we’re keeping some room in for some strategics. Our goal for this year is to get two to three pilots in the field, globally, that have a clear pathway to commerciality. The first six months of these pilots is going to be homing in and optimizing the tech for that specific field, but the idea is to have those commercialized in 2025. So that's a big focus.
How will Gold H2’s trajectory as a business intersect with Cemvita?
Cemvita started off as a platform, and they've spun up companies with specific focus areas, very little crossover … if you think about Gold H2 as one and Endolith [Cemvita’s mining business unit] as another. It is still using bugs as a basis but for completely different applications. We haven't been in a scenario where there is crossover. In fact, the specific intellectual property that we need has either been assigned to Gold H2 in the spinout or has been licensed to us.
We’re not in a situation where it's a competition because Cemvita is focused on very different things than us; they're focused on taking carbon dioxide and cheap hydrogen and creating a product out of it. If anything, I think down the road, Cemvita could become a potential customer for us because we're going to provide the cheapest source of hydrogen amongst any of our competitors.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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