Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve (2010) / Chapter Skim
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4 Helium Sourcing and Reserves
4 Helium Sourcing and Reserves
Pages 71-86
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From page 71... ...
In the last several years, as natural gas liquefying facilities have come on line, the amount of potentially recoverable helium has increased, since one consequence of liquefying natural gas is to increase the relative concentration of helium and,
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From page 72... ...
An improved assessment of the life of a country's reserves would require adjusting for the amount of helium that is bypassing helium-processing plants for that countrythat is, gas that is being vented to the atmosphere never to be recovered. To account for such losses would require obtaining, for each field with commercially available helium, information about the amount of natural gas produced from that field over a given period and the helium concentrations in that gas and then comparing the result to the amount of helium actually produced.
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From page 73... ...
United States The United States has reserves of approximately 153 Bcf and a reserve base of 350 Bcf. Table 4.2 details the amount of reserves for all principal fields in the United States currently believed to contain economically accessible concentrations of 4 The country in question, Qatar, produced approximately 2,200 Bcf of natural gas in 2007, most of it from the North Field (U.S.
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From page 74... ...
sources of helium are the Mid continent Hugoton-Panhandle field complex, in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, and ExxonMobil's Riley Ridge Field in southwestern Wyoming. Most production from the Hugoton-Panhandle complex is connected to or could be connected to the Helium Pipeline and the Bush Dome Reservoir, all noted in Figure 4.1.
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From page 75... ...
. Subtracting the 26.5 Bcf present in the Bush Dome Reservoir and the 49 Bcf estimated to be in Riley Ridge, the net amount of helium remaining in the Hugoton-Panhandle complex is 20.5 Bcf.
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From page 76... ...
In fact, the helium contained in the Kovykta field alone could be as much as 180 Bcf.7 Although there are large volumes of helium in the natural gas reserves in Kovykta as well as other fields in the former Soviet Union, decisions affecting helium development, such as the location of pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing plants to satisfy domestic and external markets, are in various stages of planning and it is not known how much planning is being done to develop helium production facilities alongside the other gas handling and processing facilities.
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From page 77... ...
helium supply is considered in three groupings: • Plants connected to the Helium Pipeline and the Bush Dome Reservoir (the BLM system) that also have their own source of crude helium, • The BLM crude reserve, stored in the Bush Dome Reservoir, and • Plants not connected to the BLM system.
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From page 78... ...
Also note that 2008 crude capacity from the natural gas fields surrounding the Helium Pipeline was only 38 percent of the related refining capacity. The 2008 worldwide crude capacity was 90 percent of refining capacity and refined production was only 79 percent of refining capacity.
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From page 79... ...
Inasmuch as the committee believes that the Bush Dome Reservoir is likely to contain significant crude helium reserves well beyond 2015, this likely imbalance between crude helium supplies and refining capacity in the Federal Helium Reserve and the associated Hugoton field requires attention. Moreover, the long lead times associated with any reconfiguration of the helium refining infrastructure connected to the Helium Pipeline means that plans for this eventuality must be developed very soon.
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From page 80... ...
The refining facilities at Moab, Ladder Creek, and Shiprock are relatively small, having contributed only a small fraction to domestic refined helium production in 2008. Both Moab and Ladder Creek suffer from a shortage of natural gas input to process.
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From page 81... ...
FUTURE HELIUM CAPACITY AND SUPPLY VERSUS HELIUM DEMAND This final section of Chapter 4 combines the forecast demand discussed in Chapter 3 and the estimated capacity being developed to meet that demand through 2020. It provides a framework for assessing the role that the Federal Helium Reserve could play for different helium capacity scenarios.
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From page 82... ...
Starting in 2012, several new plants for recovering crude helium and refining it, now in construction or in the planning stage, will begin operations. All such plants are likely to be in operation by 2015, are natural gas-based, and integrate refining capacity with crude recovery and processing capacity to produce refined liquid helium: • Linde in Darwin, Australia, projected to come on stream in 2009; • The Cimarex project in Wyoming, a venture of Cimarex Energy Co., Taiyo Nippon Sanso (TNSC)
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From page 83... ...
crude helium capacities by crude Figure 4.5.eps source country.
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From page 84... ...
In the years 2005 through 2008, the difference between foreign crude capacity and demand has been approximately 2.0 Bcf, roughly equal to the amount of helium withdrawn annually from the Bush Dome Reservoir during 10,000 U.S. Crude Capacity 9,000 Foreign Crude Capacity Worldwide Demand Base Case 8,000 Foreign Demand Volume (mmcf/yr)
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From page 85... ...
AN ALTERNATIVE ROLE FOR THE FEDERAL HELIUM RESERVE As shown in Figure 4.5, reductions in world demand for the next several years as a result of the economic downturn and the start-up of helium extraction and refining facilities thereafter will result in substantial excesses in helium production capacity through approximately 2015 (Case A)
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From page 86... ...
15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 2005 2008 2015 2020 FIGURE 4.7 Amount of crude helium in the Bush Dome Reservoir under the current scenario (Case A) , where 2.1 Bcf of helium is withdrawn from the reservoir each year, compared with the amount under Figure 4.8.eps the alternative scenario (Case B)
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