Since its start-up in January this year, Linde’s state-of-the-art helium liquefaction plant at Wickham Point, near Darwin, Australia, has been steadily ramping up to full capacity of 150 million cubic feet of helium per annum.
The new plant, designed and built by Linde Kryotechnik (www.linde-kryotechnik. ch/1259/1260.asp), a division of Linde Engineering, is the first of its kind in Australia and in the southern hemisphere,and establishes the country as self-sufficient in helium supply. It is one of only 15 helium production sites in the world. The Darwin plant produces three percent of world helium supply and, beyond meeting demand from Australia’s domestic helium requirements, has additional capacity available for export to New Zealand and Asia. Production from this plant will boost Linde’s global supply capability by nine percent.
Australia’s helium requirements were previously met by importing product from overseas, typically from the US and the Middle East. Dan Baciu, Linde’s Head of Global Helium Business Development, says, “Worldwide demand for helium is increasing steadily to meet the requirements of conventional applications and of the latest new-frontier uses.”
Helium is used in gaseous form in welding and cutting applications, in manufacturing fiber optics, in aerospace applications, in leaktesting, in breathing mixtures for deep-sea diving, in processes such as growing crystals to make silicon wafers, and for inflating party balloons. Liquid helium is used for cooling superconductive magnets. In fact, 22 percent of global demand comes from the manufacture and operation of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, which use liquid helium to cool the superconducting magnets that generate high resolution images of the human body. Linde Gas supplies helium and associated services to most of the MRI original equipment manufacturers, including Siemens, Philips, GE, Hitachi, and Toshiba, as well as to a number of electronics manufacturers.
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