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Tanzania may become the world's largest helium producer

Tanzania may become the world's largest helium producer

Image from African Business Magazine


According to relevant exploration data, the Rukwa Basin in Tanzania may have a large amount of helium reserves.

Now global supply is under threat, with the commodity surging around 500% in the past fifteen years, Helium One – the company eventually created by the Australian geologists – announced from early analysis data that Tanzania could hold as much as 98.9 billion cubic feet (bcf): enough to make the East African nation one of the world's top producers.

Aside from the large quantity, Tanzania's south western Rukwa basin – where the helium seeps are located – is also relatively unique in the concentration of helium it produces.

Professor Jon Gluyas, Director of Durham University's Energy Institute, who conducted research on Tanzania in conjunction with Oxford University and Helium One, argues that the helium concentration in Tanzania is "getting on for a world record."

While most helium is produced with very low percentages as a by-product of natural gas, helium in the Rukwa basin is found attached to the carrier-gas nitrogen and takes up a much greater share of that compound.

The percentage of helium found in Qatar – a heavyweight of helium production along with the US – stands at around 0.4% relative to methane, whereas concentration in Tanzania falls at around 10% relative to nitrogen.

Added to the 98.9 bcf potential – which towers over the yearly global supply of only 6 bcf – Josh Bluett, Helium One's Technical Director, firmly believes that "this will be the largest primary helium project in the world."

Helium One, in fact, are moving relatively quickly towards production after the pre-exploration phase was aided by extensive seismic data collected as a result of drilling by US oil company Amoco who came through the Rukwa basin in the 1980s looking for oil or gas.

Bluett states that the company is now "drill ready" after raising $2m from Australian, Asian and African investors last year, and procuring three licenses from the government.

"The next stage is to conduct the drilling program and the expectation is to make one or more helium discoveries in these reservoirs," he says. "All going to plan we will be in that phase next year and hopefully moving to production by 2021."

Helium is a crucial component in a number of instruments including MRI scanners, telescopes and radiation monitors as well as spacecraft.

The supply has been dwindling slowly over the years with around 75% of helium produced from just three sites: two in the US and one in Qatar.

This set-up is currently taking a serious hit following the decline of two US oil and gas fields which produce helium as a by-product, and the blockade of Qatar by Saudi Arabia which continues to choke their supply.

In this context Tanzania has the capacity to "alter the global supply" if it can effectively manage its helium industry and create an enabling environment for private sector input.

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