“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…

Extrapolating the new data to estimate the amount of helium beneath Pulsar’s overall land position comes with large uncertainties, but 176 million cubic feet (5 million cubic meters) — the number one gets by multiplying 22.9 million cubic feet by 7.7 to cover 100% of the land position — ‘may not be too far off’ the actual volume of helium in the reservoir, Gluyas said.

Currently, the U.S. produces roughly 2.1 billion cubic feet (60 million cubic meters) of helium, so Pulsar’s site in Minnesota could one day produce an additional 8.3% for the domestic supply.”

From Live Science.