Mantle8, based in Grenoble, announced a long-term strategic partnership with S³ – Smart Seismic Solutions at the end of February 2026. S³ is to procure dedicated seismic sensors for Mantle8 projects and provide deployment, monitoring, and data collection services worldwide. According to Mantle8, this aims to eliminate a bottleneck and enable multiple exploration campaigns to be conducted in parallel in the future.
Seismic brings knowledge about hydrogen deposits before drilling
Seismic data acquisition plays a central role in Mantle8's exploration approach. With its proprietary Horex technology, the company aims to map complete hydrogen-generating systems underground, from active generation zones to reservoirs. This is to be done before drilling. The goal is to reduce the risk in exploring natural hydrogen and to exploit it as a cost-effective, low-emission energy source.
“This partnership is about large-scale implementation,” said Emmanuel Masini, founder and CEO of Mantle8. “The challenge is no longer whether this resource exists, but how quickly it can be developed on a large scale. Secured priority access to a dedicated fleet of seismic sensors reduces the risk in one of the most critical parts of our exploration process.”
White hydrogen for 0.80 euros per kilogram from 2030?
Mantle8 was founded in 2024 and claims to already hold several exploration licenses for natural hydrogen reservoirs near demand centers. The company aims to achieve a hydrogen price of 0.80 euros per kilogram by 2030.
Patrick Robert, CEO and co-founder of S³, said: “Mantle8 sets a clear technical and operational benchmark for how this resource should be explored. This partnership marks an important step for the sector as a whole to move natural hydrogen from isolated pilot projects to a repeatable, scalable exploration model.”
S³ was founded in 2019 by six former CGG specialists and claims to have completed more than 120 projects in 30 countries on five continents. The company operates in areas such as geothermal energy, CO2 storage, mining, and civil engineering.
