Push for Australia to extract helium as Iran war impacts global supply

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Much attention has been on fuel and natural gas supplies affected by the war in Iran but supplies of a lesser-known resource, helium, have also been widely affected by the conflict. Positively, Australia is well placed to take advantage of global shortages

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00:02So helium is a by-product of liquid natural gas extraction.

00:06So when in March there was an attack on Qatar's Raslofen gas plant, it also took out helium.

00:12About one third of the world's helium supply came through that particular plant, so it's

00:17been quite a hit to industry.

00:20And so can you just remind our viewers here what helium is actually used for?

00:25It's not just balloons for parties, right? It has a much greater industry application.

00:31Far more than just party balloons. The main one that we would see every day is in MRI machines.

00:35It's actually an extraordinarily great coolant and it cools the magnets in the semiconductors,

00:41semi-magnets in those MRI machines to allow images to take place.

00:46They're also in semiconductors and microchips, so those big data centers opening up everywhere,

00:51they need helium too. You even see it used to clear out the rockets in jets.

00:57So it's got an extraordinary amount of uses.

00:59Okay, and so what is the industry calling for?

01:02Well, Australia is unique and we have a big liquid natural gas industry as everyone would know,

01:07but because it's a by-product of that extraction, it's estimated six out of the ten plants in

01:12Australia could be extracting helium. So there's calls to add it to the critical minerals list

01:17to really give industry an incentive to start extracting it and not letting it go in the

01:22towel gases where of those plants, which is where it's going at the moment with the resources minister,

01:27Madeline King saying the government is continuing to monitor supply chains.

01:31So Australia, there is potential here for Australia with respect when it comes to hydrogen.

01:35Yes. Sorry, helium.

01:37Helium.

01:37Yes, we did have a plant in Darwin. It exhausted its supply in 2023, but there are a number of

01:43other

01:43resources around the country. One company in particular, Gold Hydrogen, is seeking to extract

01:49it from the York Peninsula, west of Adelaide. They found some deposits there, but for them now,

01:54it's really scaling up, getting that big investment so they can get the wells down and actually start

01:59extracting it.

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