A more serious piece on the subject: Qatar helium production set to balloon
The North Field, part of the world’s largest gas deposit, which Qatar shares with Iran, contains only a trace concentration of helium estimated at 0.04 per cent. Even so, the approximately 36 billion cu ft of proved North Field helium reserves are the world’s largest.
Rising global demand for the gas for a range of advanced and emerging industrial applications in fields including magnetic imaging, semiconductors and fibre optics, coupled with the scale of Qatar’s existing gas liquefaction facilities, make it worth extracting. Worldwide helium demand is estimated at about 6 billion cu ft per year and is forecast to increase 30 per cent by 2020.
“Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe but rarely is it found [on earth] in quantities large enough to justify economic extraction,” said Abdullah al Attiyah, the deputy prime minister and energy minister of Qatar. “Qatar, however, is one of the few exceptions.”
Currently, the US produces 78 per cent of the world’s commercial helium supply and Algeria produces 10 per cent. Russia, Poland and Qatar produce most of the rest.
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