EPA 155 - Helium29 Oct 2023 18:03
Helium is now a lot more expensive
The Northern Territory (EPA 155) Hydrocarbon & Helium Project, (Mt Winter Project), will facilitate the drill testing of a large & potentially shallow seismically defined Neoproterozoic subsalt basal petroleum & Helium prospect in the Amadeus Basin centred upon the conditional re-entry and deepening of Mt Winter #1, a well drilled in 1981 and reaching TD in 1982. The prospect, within the Mt Winter Project area, has an apparent aerial closure of an estimated 13 km2 plus, (3,200 acres) with potential to host a TCFG scale resource of gaseous hydrocarbons with high concentrations of Helium, similar to the gas flows tested at Mt Kitty 1 and Magee 1 in the Amadeus Basin of the Northern Territory & probably present in the enormous STO/CTP JV Dukas prospect to the south which remains untested to date.
Overlying salt formations are regarded as being essential to trap Helium in any reasonable concentration during the long geological periods necessary for Helium to be generated by the decay of radiogenic minerals in basement granitoids. Estimates of potentially recoverable hydrocarbons and Helium from the prognosed basal subsalt Heavitree Quartzite in the gaseous state based on reasonable fundamentals with comparative justification at P50 Prospective Recoverable (SPE PMRS) unrisked level are c.1.5 TCFGE (Trillion Cubic Feet Equivalent) hydrocarbons and c.75 BCFG (75 million MCF) Helium respectively.
Grade-A (or 99.99% purity) industrial helium was priced at $280/MCF in the BLM August 2018 auction, (“Helium –Macro View Update” February 2019 Published by Edison Investment Research) so a gross “in the ground” value of this quantity of Helium (without reference to extraction costs or NPV calculations) may be in the order of US$20 billion, subject of course to verification of the volumetrics by the proposed exploration and test drilling programme.