Prospectors staked claims around Nova Scotia in high numbers this year after Premier Tim Houston unveiled his new open-arms approach to natural resource development.
There’s a concentration of new claims in Cumberland County where two partnered startups are searching for “white” hydrogen. Another cluster is in Hants County, where multinational mining giant Rio Tinto is hoping to find copper.
The rush has some in the industry buzzing about the potential for new mining projects, but it will likely be years before commercial production happens on any of the newly claimed areas — if it happens at all.
An exploration licence — each consisting of up to 80 claims — grants the right to explore and test the land if the landowner agrees, or if the province gives a permit to access Crown land.
As of Dec. 10, the province had issued 814 licences, with several dozen more pending that could be issued before year’s end. That’s almost double the number of licences issued in 2024.
“It is a banner year,” said Bob Stewart, a veteran geologist based in Halifax.
Stewart keeps close tabs on mineral claims and has tracked them back to the mid-1970s. He said an uptick in 2022 was caused by a lithium rush when prices for that mineral surged, then things slowed over the next two years and popped up higher than he’s ever seen in 2025.
He said there were several “pivotal” moments for mineral claims this year. The first was Houston saying in January that he intended to focus on natural resource development in his second mandate.
Hungry for hydrogen
In March, two Canadian startups started buying licences in Cumberland County. John Karagiannidis is the driving force behind both companies — Quebec Innovative Materials Corp.(QIMC) and Q Precious & Battery Metals. He’s the president of the former, which is the largest shareholder of the latter.
Karagiannidis said he started exploring for “white” hydrogen, also known as natural or geologic hydrogen, in Quebec around 2021, and more recently started to consider Atlantic Canada. He narrowed in on Nova Scotia because of Houston’s natural resource ambitions, he said.
“The premier, he has a very big energy program in place … and that really encouraged us and pushed us towards Nova Scotia versus the other provinces,” said Karagiannidis.
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Jeff Douglas spoke with the Premier on the afternoon of May 22nd, in his office in Halifax.
Natural hydrogen is sought after as a “clean” energy source that doesn’t emit carbon when burned, and could be used to dilute or displace fossil fuels.
Karagiannidis said his company intends to start test drilling in February around West Advocate. Based on soil testing and geophysical surveys of land that follows a geologic fault system from West Advocate to Springhill, he’s “very confident” there’s naturally occurring hydrogen under the ground.
Uncertainties around hydrogen
Exploiting that hydrogen at commercial levels is still theoretical, said David Risk, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at St. Francis Xavier University.
Risk studies the movement of gases through the earth and their emissions from soils. He noted only one small hydrogen gas project has ever been developed.
That well, in Bourakébougou, Mali, was discovered accidentally and is used to generate electricity for the village.
Risk said the best methods for extracting hydrogen gas are not yet clear, although they would probably include wells similar to those used for crude oil and methane gas.
“While everybody around the world is looking for hydrogen, nobody really knows how they would get it yet. So I think that there’s probably a long road to figuring out not only whether it’s there, but how one might get it out of the ground,” said Risk.
Also still left to be determined is how to regulate the extraction of hydrogen gas. It doesn’t neatly fall under the province’s legislation for minerals or petroleum. Karagiannidis said he’s in conversation with the Department of Natural Resources about the issue.
The department said it’s “working to make sure any development of this resource in Nova Scotia is appropriately regulated.”
People living in the area of the hydrogen exploration are watching attentively to see how the work progresses, said Rod Gilroy, mayor of the Municipality of Cumberland. He said they’re waiting to find out what impact it might have on the environment and their way of life.
“We may come out on side and say, ‘you know what, we think it’s a great idea and we’re all in,’ and we may do the exact opposite,” said Gilroy.
Uncertainties aside, QIMC seems to have piqued the interest of some other prospectors when it presented its early exploration results at a mineral conference in Halifax this fall. Stewart marked this as another “pivotal moment” after which mineral claims picked up, particularly in Cumberland County.
Mining giant validates local prospectors
The latest highlight, according to Stewart, was the entrance of Rio Tinto, which applied for nearly 5,000 claims across a large swath of Hants County, starting near the Avon River to the west and running nearly to the Shubenacadie River to the east.
“As part of its Canada-wide exploration efforts, Rio Tinto is embarking on an early-stage exploration program in Nova Scotia, with a focus on identifying potential copper resources,” a company spokesperson said in an email.
The spokesperson said it’s starting by looking at historical exploration data and government surveys, and has no immediate plans for active field exploration.
Rio Tinto’s entrance is thrilling for geologist Morgan Verge. She bought mineral claims last year on land that is now fully surrounded by Rio Tinto’s claims. She takes the company’s buy-in as a validation of potential she saw in the geology for a variety of critical minerals.
“The really exciting thing about it is that the work that someone like a large mining company can [do] can really benefit other local claim holders in the area by, you know, collaborating on large regional scale projects,” she said.
Verge said the area is not only endowed in copper, but also manganese, silver and lead.
Verge said this year’s rush on claims in Nova Scotia gives her industry momentum. Now it’s a matter of seeing how far and where that momentum carries.
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