While motorists, businesses, and governments around the world have been savagely hit by the blockade on oil and liquefied natural gas flowing through the Straits of Homuz through the last month or so, it’s the impact on another resource that may eventually create the longest and deepest issues.
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The wider world has been on the precipice of a helium supply crisis for decades and is now at critical levels, with production decimated after drone and missile attacks on key gas infrastructure in the Middle East.
Qatar, one of the world’s largest helium producers, has experienced supply outages, removing approximately one‑third of the global helium supply. The national company says it could take years to fix properly.
That situation poses major concerns for the world. Helium is critical for the medical sector and considered irreplaceable for semiconductor manufacturing, including applications supporting artificial intelligence and advanced computing, as well as for MRI machines, scientific research and space applications.
The industrial gas is a by-product of natural gas processing, primarily at crucial LNG refineries, where it is extracted from the tail gas stream.
Approximately 27,000 to 32,000 tonnes per year of the industrial gas were produced at natural gas refineries before the recent attacks.
How much of an impact that can have on supply is highlighted by what has happened in Australia, with the nation’s only helium extraction plant closed in late CY23 with the depletion of the giant Bayu-Undan gas field.
Before that closure, the BOC plant at Wickham Point produced approximately 150 million cubic feet (about 3% of global supply) of helium per year, which was roughly equivalent to Australia’s domestic demand.
Importing all of Australia’s helium needs is an expensive exercise, with the current hits to world production a major concern for the nation.
However, it is an ill wind that blows no good.
Some Australian junior oil and gas companies are now at the forefront in the global hunt for natural helium – not only to meet local demand – but for other markets as well that are desperately seeking commercial supplies.
Locally, high-quality helium potential has been known about for some time, particularly in the Amadeus Basin in Central Australia and on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia.
Gold Hydrogen (ASX:GHY) and its success in discovering hydrogen and extremely valuable helium at the Ramsay project in South Australia has created an ASX darling and triggered a gold rush of exploration there.
The southern company has now drilled four wells in the Ramsay licence area, with wireline logs from all wells drilled to date indicating excellent correlation and the potential for formation continuity across the project area.
Importantly, the natural helium and hydrogen-bearing reservoir properties in the project area appear to be aligned with other global field developments based on the preliminary technical analysis of the wireline logs.
In October CY24, Gold Hydrogen confirmed the presence of rare, high-value helium-three at Ramsay with concentrations up to 901 parts‐per‐trillion and helium purity levels as high as 36.9%. This discovery, supported by Oxford University and CSIRO, represents some of the highest helium purities ever tested in a non-petroleum system, holding significant potential for fusion energy and medical technology.
Another new player is Top End Energy (ASX:TEE), which has been granted a large exploration licence in the Amadeus Basin that it believes is prospective for natural helium.
Located in the far north-east, the Amadeus Basin near the WA/NT border, the EP 501 permit sits in an area where a historic helium discovery was made in the Magee-One and Mount Kitty-One wells drilled in 1992.
However, it is the potential of a Kansas helium and hydrogen exploration opportunity that has recently attracted Top End Energy’s interest.
With a history of helium potential and a massive United States market on its doorstep, Top End has joined the Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest HyTerra (ASX:HYT) in taking up significant landholding in the U.S. state.
HyTerra, which has had drilling success in Kansas already, recently added Oman to its areas of interest.
The first ASX-listed natural hydrogen gas explorer has signed an initial agreement with ARA Natural to jointly evaluate opportunities in the Sultanate of Oman.
ARA is a leading Omani E&P operator with proven in-country capability, and Oman is considered to contain the right geology.
Another junior, D3 Energy (ASX:D3E), recently took up a significant South Australia helium exploration position with the acquisition of two licences in the Arckaringa Basin.
The area is considered an emerging exploration region for helium and hydrogen, with geological characteristics considered prospective for the accumulation of critical gases.
However, it is the company’s South African helium strategy that has attracted most attention. After ongoing drilling success, D3 recently achieved a significant milestone with the completion of its maiden independently certified methane and helium reserves for a defined portion of its ER315 permit area.
The reserve certification is a key component of regulatory and dev pathway.
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