As hydrogen gas continues to emerge as a potential source of low-emission energy, MAX Power Mining Corp. April 21 reported that advanced surveying has expanded the area around its Lawson well discovery in southern Saskatchewan, Canada.

Classified under a color-coded shorthand that ties each form to its production method and carbon footprint, hydrogen takes several manufactured forms – black from coal gasification, gray from natural gas without carbon capture, blue from natural gas with carbon capture, and green from water electrolysis powered by renewables.

Absent from that original classification entirely was white hydrogen – hydrogen that occurs underground in pure form, requiring no manufacturing process whatsoever. Because natural hydrogen tends to seep and disperse, long-term accumulation had previously been viewed as geologically implausible, and for decades it drew little serious exploration attention.

In recent years, discoveries in Mali, France, and elsewhere have demonstrated that the right geological conditions can in fact trap natural hydrogen underground – and in January 2026, MAX Power confirmed Canada's first such subsurface discovery at its Lawson well in southern Saskatchewan.

Along the 475-kilometer-long (295 miles) Genesis Trend, about 140 kilometers (87 miles) south of Saskatoon, the company has assembled the largest permitted natural hydrogen land package in Canada at approximately 1.3 million acres (521,000 hectares), with another 5.7 million acres under application.

According to previously released results, the Lawson discovery well encountered hydrogen concentrations of up to 286,000 parts per million, or 28.6% – high enough to behave like a natural gas reservoir, flowing naturally to surface under its own pressure – while helium, a rare and commercially valuable gas in its own right, was detected above the main hydrogen zone, evidence the company says points to a full subsurface system rather than a single isolated gas pocket.