AKAP Energy Corrects US Helium Imports from Canada

AKAP Energy has been closely tracking US and Canada helium trade flows and we have always advocated that the US import data has been of poor quality. Canadian customs use the US reported imports to report their exports, making Canada data to the US incorrect as well. After presenting our analysis to the customs offices of both the countries, the US Census Bureau carried out an investigation and has now revised the helium import data from Canada, which is now in line with what we would have expected. The revised data is now in line with total Canadian production which has averaged of 13mmcf/month YTD: Canada exports practically all its produced helium to the US. Average Canadian helium export pricing has averaged US$366/mcf YTD, lagging prices elsewhere.

This further reinforces our belief that the US data quality is not upto mark and imports from and exports to other regions will most likely be incorrectly reported. The larger issue is that policy decisions such as removing helium from the US' Critical Mineral List was taken on this flawed data.

US helium imports vs Canadian helium production (in mmcf)