RMAG NORTH AMERICAN HELIUM CONFERENCE
March 22-23, 2023
By Michele Bishop
“T
HAT WAS ONE OF THE BEST CONFERENCES I’VE ATTENDED IN 43 YEARS OF CONFERENCES!” was just one of the comments from the more than 300 attendees at the RMAG North American Helium Conference held March 22nd and 23rd. These high-energy two days were packed with speakers, exhibitors, prospects and discussions about all aspects of the helium industry. The exhibit/prospect hall was flanked by two conference halls where talks were presented.
The conference was organized by Jeff Aldrich and Mark Germinario as co-chairs with committee support from Steven Tedesco, Rob Diedrich, Ron Broadhead, Sean Brennan, Michele Bishop and Matthew Bauer. The idea grew from a few talks in a conference room to two full days in two concurrent sessions—41 talks and 4 keynote talks in all.
Throughout the conference all participants had time to visit the Exhibition Hall where there were 26 booths; six of them prospect booths and twenty exhibitors, some helium exploration companies and some with technologies pertinent to the helium industry. The booths were busy and word is that most of the prospects were sold.
RMAG achieved a great sponsorship response from the helium industry for this conference which helped keep the price of the registration down. Included were Diamond Sponsor Blue Star Helium, and Titanium Sponsors North American Helium, OneGeo.co, Pulsar Helium, and Sproule.
Attendees included representatives from US Department of Interior, DOC Office of Critical Minerals and Metals, USGS, universities such as Kentucky, Oxford, and MetroState, the geological surveys of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, and Manitoba, BIA Division of Energy and Mineral Development, BIA, the Navajo Nation Oil and Gas Co., COGCC, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science as well as numerous independents, consultants and corporations. More than 160 entities from Canada, the US, Japan, England, South Africa, and more were represented. Attendees learned that Helium-3 (3He) is cosmic and Helium-4 (4He) is common planetary helium. It is created as 8 non-radioactive Alpha daughter products of every uranium and thorium radioactive decay. 4He is primarily found associated with natural gas, nitrogen and CO2 in concentrations mostly under 1 mol%, sometimes in concentrations under 10 mol% » CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
and is known in concentrations up to 26 mol%. Helium that is found without significant methane is known as “green helium”. Helium is separated from other gases using various methods and concentrated further using cryogenic methods. The helium market identifies “Crude Helium” (aka “lift gas”) as 50 to 90% helium, which is shipped, stored, sold for refining, used in balloons, etc. The final market product is “Grade A” (aka “5”) or 99.999% or higher helium and is used in medical equipment, space program, nuclear reactors, lasers, fiber optics, electronics, etc. Helium pricing is difficult to record since contracts are private. Several supply shortages have occurred in the past 10 years. The helium market is now experiencing shortage 4.1.
The full program with abstracts can be found here.
Benjamin Burke, RMAG President, gave the conference opening address and the first conference keynote address was presented by Phil Kornbluth who spoke about the outlook and opportunities in the helium market. The Big Picture opening morning session began with Sean Brennan reviewing the USGS assessment of known helium resources of the US, Tim
Rynott asked the question in his presentation about helium self-sufficiency of North America in the future and Jeff Aldrich reviewed regulations and valuation in the global markets. The remaining opening morning sessions featured Chris Ballentine of University of Oxford assessing helium potential in frontier basins, Gwen Brodsky, Aota Technical, reviewing Colorado’s regulatory system with implications for all regulatory systems and Nicholas Kernan, DOI Division of Minerals Evaluation, updating the attendees on valuation and future of the Federal Helium System.
An all-attendees buffet lunch was highlighted by a keynote talk from Steven Tedesco who outlined the qualities of an economic helium prospect.
Attendees then divided into two concurrent sessions organized by geographic region and topic. The Colorado Plateau Session covered the past present and future predictions for helium exploration in the Four Corners Area, the Rio Grande Rift, the Holbrook Basin, the Piceance Basin and the description of a helium migration model for the Colorado Plateau.
In the other room the concurrent first afternoon session included two sessions Midstream Logistics and Exploration: International. Transportation of
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Mark Germinario brought the mic to the audience for questions directed to speaker Sean Brennan.
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natural gas containing helium, predictions for future helium transportation, modular helium purifiers used in Saskatchewan and raw gas processing strategies were featured in the first half of the afternoon. Exploration and commercialization of helium in South Africa, exploration for helium in Europe, and exploration strategy of targeting locations of impact craters as a critical element in helium accumulations finished the afternoon session.
Day one closed with a happy hour where attendees continued their discussions of the day.
The morning of the second day again featured two concurrent sessions. One titled Exploration: Canada and the other, Exploration: Southeast Colorado and More. Speakers presented information about the Canada provinces of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan as well as Montana portions of the Western Canadian Basin, which have histories of helium exploration, discovery, and production. In the concurrent session next door, Exploration: Southeast Colorado and More, helium exploration plays, reservoir targets and characteristics, history of production, and associated gases in the Las Animas Arch area, eastern Colorado, Hugoton, New Mexico, and San Juan County
Utah were presented.
Another all-attendees buffet lunch was served and followed by a keynote talk from Jeremy Jordan who described the challenges involved with processing and commercialization of helium projects. The afternoon of the second day included two concurrent sessions. In the Technologies and Remote Sensing session near-surface geochemical analysis was described as an exploration tool as well as developments in soil gas analysis. Evaluating the role of faulting in helium accumulations and helium resource analysis using wellsite mass spectrometry were two more of the talks. Next door, the Exploration: Northern USA session included examination of helium resources in the LaBarge Platform area, the Duluth Complex in Minnesota, the Rome Trough in Kentucky, and other areas targeting the Phanerozoic. All participants came back into one room to hear from Gregg Peters for the closing keynote. He warned about the key aspects of helium off-take agreements. He offered advice to help avoid pitfalls and approaches to make agreements mutually beneficial.
A short wrap-up by Jeff Aldrich and a question and answer session with all of the keynote speakers together concluded the conference.
LEFT: RMAG Executive Director Bridget Crowther handled the registration pick-up.
RIGHT: Waiting for the doors to open-the exhibit hall hosted 20 exhibitors and 6 prospect tables.”
ABOVE: RMAG President Benjamin Burke opened the North American Helium Conference
BELOW: Discussions continued during the breaks
