MCi Carbon enlists Hatch to engineer first CO2 mineral plants

By Alex Mercer · 2026-08-01

Design work under way as commercial rollout begins

MCi Carbon has engaged global engineering firm Hatch to provide feasibility studies, engineering, plant development and project delivery planning for what the Newcastle company describes as its first commercial CO₂ mineralisation facilities.^[1] The scope covers the full engineering pathway from techno-economic assessment through to execution planning, making the collaboration the central mechanism for moving MCi Carbon from demonstration to commercial scale.

Chief Executive Marcus Dawe said design on the first commercial plants is already moving. "Design has started on the first commercial plants and Hatch's expertise strengthens our global rollout," Dawe said.^[1]

What the technology actually does

MCi Carbon's mineral carbonation technology combines CO₂ with industrial mineral feedstocks to create solid carbonates for use in low-carbon concrete and other building materials.verifiedVerified Source: mcicarbon.com^[2] The process uses a low-pressure, low-energy chemical reaction to bind carbon dioxide emissions with alkaline mineral feedstocks and industrial waste, yielding stable carbonate products rather than storing gas underground or in liquid form.

The output is saleable. Carbonated materials feed directly into construction supply chains, so the process generates a commercial product rather than a liability. That structural difference sets mineral carbonation apart from other carbon capture approaches. Bushletter could not independently verify product pricing or offtake figures, which come from the company's own materials.

Myrtle plant: the numbers behind the launchpad

The Myrtle demonstration plant on Kooragang Island can mineralise approximately 2,500 tonnes of CO₂ per year into around 10,000 tonnes of carbonated materials.verifiedVerified Source: mcicarbon.com^[3] Myrtle is co-located at Orica's ammonia facility in Newcastle, giving it a live industrial CO₂ source and direct access to the alkaline mineral waste streams the process relies on.

Continuous operation is planned from 2026, and the plant's primary purpose is to generate scale-up data and product samples for the commercial rollout rather than to function as a revenue-generating facility in its own right.^[3] At this stage, the data coming out of Myrtle is the commercial product, informing the feasibility work Hatch is now being asked to complete.

The four-to-one ratio of carbonated output to CO₂ input is the figure worth watching. It reflects the mass gain from incorporating mineral feedstock into the solid product, and it determines how much saleable material a commercial plant can generate for each tonne of CO₂ it processes.

Hatch's role and what it brings

Hatch is an employee-owned global engineering and project delivery firm with over 10,000 professionals operating in more than 150 countries.verifiedVerified Source: hatch.com^[4] Its work spans feasibility studies, detailed engineering, plant development and project delivery planning for large-scale industrial decarbonisation projects, mapping directly onto what MCi Carbon needs as it moves beyond the demonstration stage.

Wendy Harris, Hatch's Regional Director for Climate Change in Australia and Asia, framed the engagement around execution rather than concept. Harris said the focus is on scale-up, technology integration and execution planning.^[1] That framing signals Hatch is treating this as a deployment problem, not a research one, a meaningful distinction for a technology that has spent more than a decade moving from laboratory to demonstration.

The collaboration will also give MCi Carbon techno-economic assessments alongside the engineering work, providing structured cost and viability data the company can take to project financiers and potential industrial partners as it seeks to replicate the Kooragang Island model at sites internationally.^[1]

Company background and backing

MCi Carbon was founded in 2013 and now employs more than 45 staff, with early financial support from Australian and New South Wales governments and from chemicals and mining services company Orica.^[2] The Orica connection is not incidental: the Myrtle plant sits on Orica's Kooragang Island site, and ammonia production there generates the CO₂ feedstock the plant will use.

MCi Carbon's thirteen-year development arc, from founding through pilot work to a demonstration plant now moving toward continuous operation, is the kind of timeline common in industrial process technology, where proving chemistry at bench scale is fast and proving it at industrial scale is slow. The Hatch partnership is the clearest signal yet that MCi Carbon believes it has crossed the threshold where engineering for commercial deployment is the right next investment.

For the construction materials sector, the commercial case does not depend on a high carbon price alone. Industrial mineral waste streams that currently represent a disposal cost for heavy industry become a carbon-fixing input for MCi Carbon's process, so the economics turn on the spread between waste disposal costs and the value of low-carbon concrete inputs, a spread that varies by geography and industrial context. Site-specific feasibility work with Hatch is designed to resolve exactly that calculation.

Alex Mercer

Alex Mercer writes about search and how businesses get discovered. He has spent years watching what makes a company visible online, and is unsentimental about tactics that no longer work.