Recently, Baosteel successfully developed and delivered hydrogen storage oil casings for a large-scale hydrogen storage project in deep salt caverns, contributing to the creation of "Asia's first deep salt cavern hydrogen storage facility." This breakthrough fully demonstrates Baosteel's leading technical capabilities in the field of hydrogen energy storage and transportation pipelines, providing strong technical support for the independent development of clean energy storage and transportation equipment in China.

As the global demand for clean energy continues to grow, hydrogen energy, as an efficient and clean secondary energy source, plays a crucial role in the energy transition. However, the challenges of hydrogen storage and transportation have always been bottlenecks limiting its large-scale application. Salt cavern energy storage is akin to first creating a gas tank to store the gas, by drilling wells and constructing cavities to form salt caverns for hydrogen storage. Once the salt caverns are created, they can be used to store hydrogen.

Asia's first large-scale hydrogen storage project in deep salt caverns has officially commenced in Ye County, Pingdingshan City, Henan Province. The project utilizes salt caverns formed after brine extraction to store hydrogen, with the top of the salt layer located approximately underground and a designed drilling depth reaching meters. Upon completion, the project will pioneer a new era of large-scale underground hydrogen storage in China, marking a significant step forward in this field and holding important demonstration and promotion value.

Hydrogen, as a highly flammable and explosive special gas, can easily cause hydrogen embrittlement when in contact with metal materials. At the same time, due to its extremely small molecular weight and strong permeability, any leakage poses serious safety hazards, making the safety performance requirements for hydrogen storage equipment extremely stringent.

To address this market demand, the Comprehensive Materials Solutions Center of the Central Research Institute (Baosteel New Creation) and the Steel Pipe Research Institute leveraged their technical expertise in user demand analysis, new material development, and processing and manufacturing. They successfully developed hydrogen storage casing and tubing products with high strength and toughness, resistance to high-pressure hydrogen embrittlement, and excellent hydrogen gas sealing performance.

The special hydrogen-sealing threaded hydrogen storage casing and tubing contract faced dual challenges of high quality requirements and a tight delivery schedule. In response, Baosteel's Steel Tube & Bar Business Unit and the Central Research Institute quickly formed a joint support team composed of key personnel from various processes. During the Spring Festival holiday, all relevant departments worked overtime and collaborated closely to strictly meet customer demands and complete the production tasks. Tests confirmed that all performance indicators of the products met the technical requirements and usage standards.

This supply not only provides critical support for customers in their hydrogen energy industry layout but also opens up new business areas for Baosteel, while further advancing the high-quality development of China's hydrogen energy sector.