Lab results show significant helium levels at drill site that would be Minnesota’s first

Pulsar Helium is a step closer to building Minnesota’s first helium drilling operation after the company said lab tests confirmed a potent concentration of the gas from a well at an exploration site near Babbitt.

There is a national shortage of helium, an essential gas for space exploration, semiconductor chip manufacturing and some medical imaging. Yet extraction for helium alone is rare, as it’s usually a byproduct of natural gas drilling.

The Canada-based Pulsar said Thursday that helium content of 11 samples sent to two labs measured up to 13.8%, far above what CEO Tom Abraham-James said is a 0.3% threshold for potentially economically viable helium projects.

“The grade is astonishing,” Abraham-James said.

Pulsar had found concentrations of up to 12.4% in gas from its appraisal well tested on site in late February. But the company sent additional samples to Isotech Laboratories and Smart Gas Sciences for another look.

The 13.8% finding is more reliable and more accurate than readings taken on site with a “quadrupole mass spectrometer,” the company said in its he news release.

Cliff Cain, CEO of the Edelgas Group, an international gas-advising firm working with Pulsar, said in the news release that the results “are the highest helium concentrations that we have ever seen.”

By contrast, a potential Pulsar project in Greenland found helium concentration of 0.8%.

In Minnesota, Pulsar now must test the flow and pressure of the helium, another key ingredient in determining whether an extraction project can be successful. That won’t start until end-of-winter road conditions improve, Abraham-James said.

“Helium concentration is one thing. The next thing is how voluntarily is that helium coming out of the ground?” he said.

Duluth Metals found the reservoir by chance in 2011 during a search for platinum and palladium. The company hit a pocket of pressurized gas, which testing determined was 10.5% helium.

A member of the team notified Abraham-James, and Pulsar’s subsequent exploration confirmed those long-ago results. Abraham-James said in February that if the reservoir can sustain a large operation, the company hopes to produce one 40-foot container of liquid helium per day from one drill hole and employ roughly 20 people.

Pulsar would need a permit from Lake County to start a commercial operation and clearance from the state. But the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said there’s little to no road map for assessing a helium project.

There is no fossil fuel extraction in Minnesota, and no helium drilling either.

“We are looking at all available options for creating a clear regulatory structure for nonpetroleum gas extraction,” DNR spokesman Erik Evans wrote in an email last month.