Helium push takes flight… in Sask.

By COLLIN GALLANT on May 13, 2023.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

Six years after Medicine Hat’s energy company pushed into helium exploration to promote the Gas City as central to the emerging sector, the industry may be approaching a critical point where large investment is needed.

That’s according to the province of Saskatchewan, which is pushing hard for facilities to be built on its side of the provincial boundary and has the goal of becoming a major global supplier of the rare industrial element.

Local officials say that while exploration activity ended, the city could restart active pursuit of knock-on investments.

“Effective transportation and processing options will need to be selected based on the characteristics of the resource and of the technologies commercially available,” reads the summary of “Helium Liquefaction in Saskatchewan,” prepared for the Ministry of Mines and Resources, and released this week.

“A helium liquefaction facility is a promising opportunity for the Province of Saskatchewan that bears further scrutiny.”

The report comes after several years of heavy development by private sector – supported by $30 million in provincial subsidies provided since 2021 – and states expected production could require a large scale “liquefaction” hub near Swift Current or several smaller facilities.

That hub would gather quantities of the gas collected and trucked from stand-alone wells stretching from south of the Cypress Hills to Mankato, then compress it for export in larger quantity.

Currently smaller shipments are sent by truck to liquefaction sites in Colorado via the port of Coutts.

That was essentially the same business plan of the city’s energy division in 2017,

“We never closed the file on the liquefaction plant,” said Brad Maynes, the city’s managing director of utilities and infrastructure.

“It was very much an ambition for the (Medicine Hat) area even if the majority of the helium production ended up in southwest Saskatchewan.”

Maynes, who developed the helium plan as head of the energy division, announced this month that he will leave the city next month.

The city is also is also currently hiring senior staff for its Invest Medicine Hat business attraction office.

Maynes reiterated to the News that processing facilities in the newly developing sector would only be viable once enough production came online.

“With the success (private sector producer) North American Helium has had, that threshold (for a liquefaction plant) is likely close,” he said. “I would expect that Medicine Hat will likely revisit the opportunity once the new economic development team is in place.”

Beyond North American Helium, which operates southeast of the Cypress Hills, other companies have secured leases and brought wells online in Saskatchewan as well as Alberta.

Royal Helium announced this year it would spend $20 million to develop an initial collection plant at its Steveville site, north of Brooks. Global Helium has signed agreements to co-locate with oil and gas rights holders on a massive expanse of land west of Pakowki Lake called the “Manyberries Helium Trend.”

In 2018, Medicine Hat launched a limited drilling campaign in the greater region to find new sources of oil while also targeting geological formations where helium can become trapped deep underground.

Several wells did show helium presence, but at levels considered non-economic as stand-alones. Eventually, they were farmed out to other unnamed helium explorers, and the city has collected a portion of proceeds ever since.

Alberta government has also noted the potential to develop a domestic helium supply, but hasn’t provided subsidies that Saskatchewan has, but has outlined such facilities could come under more general diversification or petrochemical facility programs.

Alberta’s “Critical Mineral Action Plan” released last March outlines the potential for Alberta to benefit from demand of rare earth minerals, such as lithium and vanadium, needed largely for battery production, but also touched on helium, which is critical in high tech manufacturing and other applications.

“Alberta has potential for significant helium deposits in the southeast part of the province,” it stated.