Australian helium production likely to cease later this year

According to Santos, the operator of the Bayu Undan gas field in Australia, production in Q2’22 was weaker in Q2’22 (-45% q/q and -70% y/y). The field is expected to continue to decline and production is anticipated to cease in late 2022. Our helium export data from Australia (implied from import data due to the lack of Australian data) shows weaker helium exports in 2022 so far to date. Australia produced around 135mmcf of helium in 2022 on our estimates (2% of global supply). This will deal yet another blow to global supply impacting the Asian market.

The Darwin LNG facility is Australia’s sole plant that produces helium from the Bayu Undan field, which contains just 0.1% helium. 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. The 150mmcf/y plant was brought online in February 2010 by BOC (now Linde) at an estimated cost of A$50mm. The LNG facility will be adapted to take gas from the Barossa field, which has a much lower helium content (0.02%). The helium resource in Bayu-Undan has been estimated at 4.3bcf but in Barossa just 0.7bcf.

Helium imports from Australia (mmcf)