Introducon

In May of 2018, The United States Department of Interior

published a list of 35 minerals considered crical to economic and

naonal security. Included on this list was the prime ingredient of

a well-established party favor, the element helium (g. 1). Helium

is produced by the radioacve decay of uranium and thorium and

accumulates below Earth’s surface in natural gas deposits. These

gas accumulaons have been developing throughout Earth’s

history, but it is now esmated that more helium is produced

The United States is the world’s leading producer of helium, with

fourteen extracon plants in operaon in the states of Arizona,

Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. These plants

extracted an esmated 64 billion cubic feet (1.8 billion cubic

meters) of helium from natural gas in 2018 (Peterson, 2019).

Much of this producon comes from the Panhandle-Hugoton eld

which stretches from southwestern Kansas across the panhandles

of Oklahoma and Texas (Brown, 2019). The U.S. currently supplies

Helium is the second-most abundant element, esmated to

account for approximately 24% of the total elemental mass in the

observable universe, as well as the second lightest, ranking behind

hydrogen in both cases. While hydrogen is seven percent more

buoyant than helium, it is a very reacve element, eagerly sharing

its lone electron with heavier elements like carbon and oxygen to

form molecules which eecvely anchor hydrogen atoms down.

Helium on the other hand is monatomic and nonreacve. Helium

is so light that Earth’s gravitaonal pull is insucient to contain

it, or stated dierently, once an atom of helium reaches the

helium. Second again. But there are characteriscs for which

helium rises (pun intended) to the very top.

Figure 1. A longme staple of birthday pares, proms,

and other celebraons, bouquets of helium balloons are

becoming harder to nd at party supplies stores due to

shortages in helium supply.

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Helium has the lowest boiling and melng points of all elements,

becoming a liquid at -450.3 degrees Fahrenheit (5.2 ᵒK) and

remaining a liquid at absolute zero. This property makes it

helium is a useful medium for leak detecon. Its nonreacvity and

low cost make it an eecve shielding gas in welding. Helium is

also used for pressurizing and purging rocket tanks, in complex

fabricaon processes, as a liing gas, and other uses (like making

your voice sound funny).

If you are someone who has regularly purchased balloons for

birthday and graduaon pares or other special occasions, over

the past decade you may have noced that it is geng a lile bit

harder to nd helium-lled balloons, and if you do nd them, that

the prices have, well… ballooned. At least some of the reasons

for this can be traced back to a history of public policy enacted to

promote helium gas as advantageous to naonal defense and in

the development of commercial aeronaucs.

The Helium Acts

On March 3, 1925 President Calvin Coolidge signed into law

the United States Bureau of Mines regulatory power over it.

The build-up of the Naonal Helium Reserve at Bush Dome and the

infrastructure of the associated Cliside storage facility connued

with Helium Acts Amendments of 1960, signed by President

Privazaon Act of 1996, signed into law by President William

Clinton. Aer more than a decade of price and supply stability,

this law required the federal government to begin liquidang

its stake in the Naonal Helium Reserve and let private industry

gradually meet all producon needs for the resource. However,

when federal sales began, price was determined by a

formula meant to recover the debt of approximately 1.4

billion dollars which had been incurred while building

Inially this formula resulted in a price for federal helium

that was approximately 25% above the market price, but

as me passed and more uses for helium came online

the market price eventually exceeded the formula-based

price. This resulted in federal helium being sold at a low

price and likely held back private industry’s exploraon

for and producon of new supply (Naonal Resource

Council, 2000). By 2009, shortages of helium began to

be noced.

A proposed remedy for this problem was legislated

by the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013, signed by

President Barack Obama, which opened aucons for a

poron of federal helium sales. While this did restore

Helium in the Williston Basin

An indicaon of helium potenal in the Canadian poron of the

Williston Basin was rst discovered in southwestern Saskatchewan

in 1952, and producon occurred from four wells north of the

town of Swi Current during the years of 1963 to 1977. Recent

reporng of gas analysis from wells in southwestern Saskatchewan

suggests the Deadwood Formaon and other lower Paleozoic

formaons tend to have the highest helium concentraons

(Yurkowski, 2016).

In 2018, the NDGS began a search through the digital well le

analycal results of 14,242 gas samples collected naon-wide

Figure 3. Map view of wells with helium concentraons generated from data reported in the U.S. Bureau of Mines Informaon

Circular 9129. Sample locaon dots provide informaon on the stragraphic units the gas samples were collected from and the range

of helium concentraons measured. The highest concentraon reported came from a commingled sample from the Winnipegosis

Formaon (Devonian) and Red River Formaon (Ordovician).

from 1917 through 1985 (Moore & Sigler, 1987), 55 of which

were from wells in North Dakota. The NDGS generated a map

highlighng the stragraphic units from which these gas samples

Natural gas with a helium concentraon of at least 0.3 percent

is considered potenally economic for helium producon as a

primary product. Only one of the 55 samples from North Dakota

reported by Moore & Sigler (1987) exceeds this threshold, a

commingled sample collected from Devonian and Ordovician

source rocks. Three of the ve samples collected from either

the Winnipeg Group or the Deadwood Formaon had helium

collecon and laboratory procedures ulized to collect this data,

they might be more appropriately viewed to be minimum helium

concentraons of these sources.

References

Brown, A., 2019, Origin of helium and nitrogen in the Panhandle-

Peterson, J.B., 2019, Mineral Commodity Summaries – Helium

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