Massive helium reservoir in Minnesota could solve US shortage

A massive helium reservoir discovered in Minnesota earlier this year could alleviate critical shortages of the gas across several industries in the U.S., experts say.

On Aug. 21, the resource exploration company Pulsar Helium announced the results of an independent evaluation of its helium drilling site near Babbitt — and the data bode well for commercial helium production, according to a statement.

The evaluation estimated the volume of helium recoverable from a single well that taps into 13% of the overall land that Pulsar Helium owns in Minnesota. The results showed this one well contains 22.9 million cubic feet (649,000 cubic meters) of helium, which is equivalent to roughly 1% of U.S. helium production in 2023 and 0.4% of total global production in 2023, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

"Such positive estimations received from a single and comparatively shallow well are hugely encouraging ahead of further exploration," Thomas Abraham-James, the president and CEO of Pulsar Helium, said in the statement. Further exploration of the site and deeper drilling of the existing well are scheduled to take place later this year, Abraham-James said.

Laboratory results in June revealed that helium concentrations at the Minnesota site are the highest the industry has ever seen, at up to 14.5%.

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"That's phenomenally high," Jon Gluyas, a professor of geoenergy, carbon capture and storage at the University of Durham in the U.K. who does not work at Pulsar Helium, told Live Science. Gases with helium concentrations of 0.3% and above are considered commercially viable, so anything "upward of that is really good news," Gluyas said.