{"id":36931,"date":"2023-09-04T15:30:07","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T14:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=36931"},"modified":"2024-01-19T15:26:22","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T15:26:22","slug":"accelerating-and-developing-helium-exploration-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/accelerating-and-developing-helium-exploration-in-the-us\/36931\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Corners Helium: Accelerating and developing helium exploration in the US"},"content":{"rendered":"
To date, Four Corners Helium (FCH) has achieved multiple milestones. These include marketing the SE Utah Red Helium project to Australian-based Grand Gulf Energy in March 2021; entering an exclusive arrangement with the Ute Mountain Utes in southwest Colorado to explore their more than 500,000 acres of tribal lands for helium; and forming a joint development agreement with Leipzig Energy to economically strip helium from flare gas \u2013 creating blue hydrogen in the process.<\/p>\n
Tim Rynott, Founder of FCH, has been an invited speaker for helium presentations in three Colorado cities (Durango, Grand Junction, Denver), as well as Houston, Texas. Rynott also organised and participated in one of Gasworld\u2019s most successful webinars in its history, with over 900 registrants.<\/p>\n
A primary goal of Four Corners Helium is to target locations that will be economically unaffected once new Russian helium supplies abate prices in two to three years. Additionally, FCH is working to help pump enough domestic helium into the US market<\/a> to offset the rapidly declining Federal Helium Reserve. North America has never been a net importer of helium and the collective of helium explorers are determined to perpetuate this status quo.<\/p>\n Like many Native American communities around the United States, tribes who were historically dependent on oil and gas revenues are finding themselves pushed by the U.S. Interior Department to diminish their dependency on oil and gas revenue. Reliance on these revenues varies from tribe to tribe, and Mother Nature\u2019s mineral lottery is separating the \u2018haves\u2019 from the \u2018have-nots\u2019. For the Ute Mountain Utes, their lottery ticket comes in the form of helium. Four Corners Helium has identified an initial seven-well drilling programme<\/a> with projected flow rates of 5-10 million feet of helium per day and helium percentages at 2-3%. Utilising the Ute\u2019s robust 2D and 3D seismic library has been instrumental in de-risking the subsalt Mississippian Leadville formation. Seismic reprocessing by our partner e<\/em>Seis Inc, provides patented direct detection techniques for identifying porosity compartments \u2013 a key element in exploring complex Mississippian carbonates.<\/p>\n FCH desires to improve the financial livelihood of the Ute Mountain Utes while at the same time respecting their lands as if they were our own. In addition to taking advantage of a massive solar project positioned within mere miles of our proposed drilling locations, Four Corners Helium is investigating a sophisticated filtering system for converting produced water for urgent agricultural needs. In addition, analysis is underway to eliminate ecologically damaging flare gas by using steam methane reform to convert the methane-based flare gas into blue hydrogen and market-grade CO2<\/sub>. From an economic perspective, blue hydrogen is presently advantageous over green hydrogen, while the viability of white hydrogen is still being researched.<\/p>\n Timing is everything, and FCH is excited to announce the Utes have begun a strategic re-structuring of its tribal governance. Modelled after the Colorado-based Southern Utes, one of the most business-savvy Indigenous communities in North America, the Ute Mountain Utes will be streamlining their regulatory and managerial departments. Becoming more industry friendly will allow the Ute Mountain Utes to catch up with their helium-savvy next-door neighbour \u2013 the Navajo Nation.<\/p>\n In three quick years, NASCO, NTEC, and the NNOGC have drilled over 15 new helium discoveries on Navajo lands. Geologically, the Ute Mountain Utes and Navajos are situated on the Four Corners Platform \u2013 a 1,000-square-mile area containing a vast number of undrilled structural closures with helium concentrations reaching 8%. Other than the Yurubchen-Tokhomo complex in eastern Siberia, and southeast Utah in the United States, it is hard to find more promising geological conditions for discovering significant helium accumulations.<\/p>\nCoyote Wash Project: Ute Mountain Utes<\/h3>\n
The Red Helium Project: Southeast Utah<\/h3>\n