In May 2010, Air Liquide was awarded a contract for the Engineering Procurement and Construction (Turnkey EPC) for a second helium recovery unit [RLH II] dedicated to the Ras Laffan refinery in Qatar. This unit will come in addition to the one [RLH I] delivered and commissioned by Air Liquide in 2005. It will increase the helium production of Qatar from 10% to 28% of worldwide production.RLH I and RLH II use Air Liquide Advanced Technologies helium liquefiers. With a production of 8 tons of liquid helium per day, the RLH I liquefier is the world largest, but not for long. Thanks to the newly developed turbine TC7, Air Liquide was able to propose for RLH II a single liquefier able to produce over 20 tons per day of liquid helium without liquid nitrogen pre-cooling. This liquefier using 6 Air Liquide turbines (TC series) will set a new record in the world of helium liquefaction.

The standard helium liquefier and refrigerator range, called HELIAL, designed by AIR LIQUIDE DTA, has been upgraded with significant improvement of efficiency as a result of technological development.. Indeed in the demanding high tech markets, (international laboratories, aerospace applications, synchrotrons, HTS applications...), cryogenic systems must provide increasingly high performances. The new HELIAL Evolution is equipped with AIR LIQUIDE DTA's expansion turbines, well known for their extremely high reliability and efficiency,. The results of this development endowing the HELIAL Evolution with twice liquefaction capacity, are presented in this paper.

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