Helium: supply, conflict, security and energy futures

Over 30% of global supply, from Qatar, is ensnared in the Gulf behind the Straits of Hormuz.  More still is embargoed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and as a consequence Russia exports only to China and over 40% of global production is trapped by US so as to meet domestic demand.  This is a pretty dramatic, recent history for a gas only ever found by accident when looking for petroleum, until that was a joint Durham and Oxford University research project specifically to develop a model for helium exploration and sponsored by Statoil (now Equinor) found in December 2015, the first new helium province in 100 years and the only one to date free of associated greenhouse gases.  The discovery at Rukwa, Tanzania has since been confirmed by drilling, but it may be some while before it comes to market.  Nonetheless, that discovery helped spark a new helium exploration industry.  In addition to our own efforts new companies have emerged in Europe, North America, Australia, Africa and Asia to search for this critical commodity. 

Helium was first found in large quantities at Dexter Kansas in 1903 when drilling for petroleum. Known as the gas that would not burn, it was mostly nitrogen with a little under 2% helium.  The gas became a novelty but in 1914 a German chemist published a book on the application of chemistry to aviation – as a lift gas for military dirigibles.  Just a few months later the British shot down one such airships using incendiary bullets.  The dirigible did not explode and the British Admiralty concluded that it must have been filled with helium and not the more common but explosive hydrogen.  The strategic advantage of helium was realised immediately, and the search was on for new reserves.  In the wake of the First World War both the Soviets and the Americans analysed gases in thousands of wells, and the latter at least created a strategic resource.  Helium was stripped from hydrocarbon gases which typically had 0.3% helium or less.  For Qatar helium is extracted as by product of LNG and even with a concentration of 0.04% being the norm for helium it is still economically viable to separate it from the methane. 

Now, with a multiple of uses, demand for helium rises year on year.  For example, SpaceX forecast 10,000 launches per year in 5-7 years’ time.  Liquid helium, and lots of it, is required for each launch and at 10,000 annual launches some 20+% of US domestic current annual helium production would be required.  Similarly, a 1GW atomic power plant, should we ever develop one, will require helium fluxes of thousands of cubic meters per second to act as a coolant.  Meet these markets and you will still need to satisfy the computer chip and fibre optics sector where helium atmospheres are critical for manufacturing processes, meet the medical cryogenics demand, meet those working in leak detection, welding and even those selling party balloons! 

The breakthroughs in Tanzania were finding helium concentrations of 10%, no associated greenhouse gases and demonstrating that it is possible to explore for helium and not just hope for the best.  It is also ironical that the German dirigible, shot down in 1914, was not filled with helium but hydrogen.  The helium industry was founded on a falsehood.