Sask. helium drilling could provide new prospects for struggling oilpatch | CBC News
The global market for helium, meanwhile, is being thrown wide
open by the U.S. government’s decision five years ago to gradually sell
off its strategic reserves of the inert gas and turn the market it now
heavily influences over to the private sector by 2021.
open by the U.S. government’s decision five years ago to gradually sell
off its strategic reserves of the inert gas and turn the market it now
heavily influences over to the private sector by 2021.
The
environment is ripe for a resurgence of the industry in Saskatchewan,
which produced helium from wells for about a decade 50 years ago before
foundering due to slumping prices, said Melinda Yurkowski, assistant
chief geologist for the Saskatchewan Geological Survey.
“It’s
still a lot of rank exploration right now,” she said, adding no one
knows how much helium — produced by the decay of radioactive uranium and
thorium — the province contains.