The helium industry is a fascinating one. It is also an exciting and fun industry to work in…most of the time. It is a truly global industry with far more similarities to the oil and gas industry than to the traditional industrial gas industry, which is much more ‘local’ in nature.
The development of natural underground reservoirs to access raw material for further purification, the extraction of further materials whose commercialisation is also required, and a need for a cost-effective regional and global transport of the material from production hubs (usually extremely remote) to consuming points are just some of the evident similarities. Even if some helium pure-play sources become commercially viable, the overwhelming majority of all the helium has and will continue to depend on the successful commercialisation of natural gas fields, such as those in Siberia, Qatar, the US, and others.
Another critical similarity to the oil and gas industry, is that the helium industry’s participants need to address a critical question around the timing of exploiting a reservoir. Should the reservoir be commercialised to produce and sell a helium molecule today, or wait for a better opportunity in the future? That decision-making balance, which has been a fundamental pillar of this industry, was challenged over the last few years, and is only recently that it has returned to equilibrium.
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