Helium in the Australian liquefied natural gas economy

Abstract

Australia is about to become the premier global exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), bringing increased opportunities for helium extraction. Processing of natural gas to LNG necessitates the exclusion and disposal of non-hydrocarbon components, principally carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Minor to trace hydrogen, helium and higher noble gases in the LNG feed-in gas become concentrated with nitrogen in the non-condensable LNG tail gas. Helium is commercially extracted worldwide from this LNG tail gas. Australia has one helium plant in Darwin where gas (containing 0.1% He) from the Bayu-Undan accumulation in the Bonaparte Basin is processed for LNG and the tail gas, enriched in helium (3%), is the feedstock for helium extraction. With current and proposed LNG facilities across Australia, it is timely to determine whether the development of other accumulations offers similar potential. Geoscience Australia has obtained helium contents in ~800 Australian natural gases covering all hydrocarbon-producing sedimentary basins. Additionally, the origin of helium has been investigated using the integration of helium, neon and argon isotopes, as well as the stable carbon (13C/12C) isotopes of carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon gases and isotopes (15N/14N) of nitrogen. With no apparent loss of helium and nitrogen throughout the LNG industrial process, together with the estimated remaining resources of gas accumulations, a helium volumetric seriatim results in the Greater Sunrise (Bonaparte Basin) > Ichthys (Browse Basin) > Goodwyn–North Rankin (Northern Carnarvon Basin) accumulations having considerably more untapped economic value in helium extraction than the commercial Bayu-Undan LNG development.

Assessing the Past and Future Sustainability of Global Helium Resources, Extraction, Supply and Use, Using the Integrated Assessment Model WORLD7

“…A recent article by Boreham et al (2018) works through Australian natural gas wells, and in particular those where LNG production is planned. The initial assessment states that the deposits hold as much as 10 million ton of helium.…”

“…Heinberg 2011;Sverdrup and Ragnarsdottir 2014). Medical uses, most importantly MRI imaging, used 30-35% of the helium supply in 2018, entertainment use (party balloons) uses 15%, other scientific use takes about 17%, welding uses 9%, engineering use takes 6%, leak detection uses 5%, and other unspecified uses take about 14% (Anderson 2017; Boreham et al 2018;Mohr and Ward 2014). Of these, the medical use and the scientific use are of high importance for modern health care and the advancement of science.…”

Operational Costs of He3 Separation Using the Superfluidity of He4

“…The global He3 production from the decay of tritium is around 20 kg [7]. Additionally, new sources of helium are constantly being discovered, e.g., in Australia, New Zealand [8,9].…”

Quantifying the helium and hydrocarbon accumulation processes using noble gases in the North Qaidam Basin, China

“…Commercial helium is often exploited from CH4 gas fields; however, helium concentrations vary in a big range among gas fields globally (Ballentine and Lollar, 2002;Boreham et al, 2018 and references therein). This fact gives rise to an interesting question: what are the critical processes controlling helium accumulation in natural gas fields?…”

“…It is widely used in cryogenic engineering equipment, particularly the nuclear magnetic resonance imaging in medical diagnostics. It also has huge applications in space programmes, electronics, optical fibre manufacturing and scientific research (Cai et al, 2010;Nuttall et al, 2012, Boreham et al, 2018. The world has experienced shortages of helium twice, in 2006-2007 and 2013 (Ballentine, 2017;Bare et al, 2016).…”