Grenoble, France | Tuesday, 24th February 2026 – Mantle8, the French geoscience company pioneering natural hydrogen exploration, has entered a long-term strategic partnership with S³ – Smart Seismic Solutions, securing access to a dedicated fleet of seismic sensors and associated field services, providing Mantle8 reliable subsurface data of the highest quality, as required for the imaging of hydrogen-generating systems using Mantle8’s HOREX technology.

This partnership removes a critical operational bottleneck, enabling rapid worldwide deployment to multiple exploration campaigns in parallel – significantly accelerating Mantle8’s shift from technology validation to global deployment.

Seismic acquisition plays a central role in Mantle8’s exploration approach, allowing the company to image entire hydrogen systems, from active hydrogen generation zones to reservoirs, before drilling. Derisking natural hydrogen exploration in this way is the key to unlocking hydrogen as a domestic, low-cost and low-emissions energy resource.

“This partnership is about execution at scale,” said Emmanuel Masini, Founder and CEO of Mantle8. “With natural hydrogen exploration now receiving the attention it deserves, and the consequences of prolonging fossil fuel use becoming increasingly clear, the challenge is no longer whether this resource exists, but how quickly it can be unlocked at scale. Securing priority access to a dedicated fleet of seismic sensors de-risks one of the most critical parts of our exploration workflow.”

S³ will procure dedicated seismic sensors for Mantle8’s projects and provide deployment, monitoring and data harvesting services globally. For S³, the partnership reflects growing demand for seismic solutions beyond traditional oil and gas applications, as new subsurface resources emerge as a significant part of the energy transition.

“Natural hydrogen is opening a new chapter for subsurface exploration,” said Patrick Robert, CEO and Co-Founder of S³. “Mantle8 is setting a clear technical and operational benchmark for how this resource should be explored. This partnership allows us to support that ambition with the scale, reliability and field expertise required for sustained exploration programs. For the sector as a whole, this marks an important step in moving natural hydrogen from isolated pilot projects towards a repeatable, scalable exploration model.”