Tanzania's Helium

Article by Amne Suedi - Principal at Shikana Law Group, Engineer Assa Mwakilembe, BSc. Engineering (UDSM), PDGFM (IAA) and Mines Inspector at the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Tanzania, BSc. Engineering (UDSM), PDGFM (IAA).

Helium occurrence in Tanzania is not a new thing. It is one of the product that are associated with the natural gas and petroleum products. Tanzania has been searching the oil and gas since the early 50's, during the colonial era and later after independence where the formulation of Tanzania Petroleum and Development Corporation (TPDC) continued to carry out the oil and gas exploration. In few of the blocks where natural gas was discovered, helium was found but not at an economical scale and there was a need for a huge investment in order to separate it. Therefore, what is new is that recently, there has been a new discovery of vast amount of helium gas in the Great Rift Valley. The discovery is approximately at 54 Billion Cubic feet (enough to fill more than 1.2 million Medical MRI scanners), which makes Tanzania a potential global new supplier of Helium in the near future. Helium discovered in the rift valley has another competitive advantage. Most of the helium found is associated with natural gas or petroleum which needs to be separated from it but the rift valley discoveries is natural helium.

Globally, the helium consumption is estimated at 8 billion cubic per annum. There is a market worth USD 6 billion per year for Helium and this market is growing. The consumption is estimated to increase by five percent every year. Apart from party balloons, the main usage for helium is for medical purposes, military, laboratory, arc welding, and nuclear reactors. The advantage helium has is that it is inert, therefore stable and cannot react with any atom and it is the only gas which can be used to cool atoms to around -270 Celcius to reduce their vibrations and make them easier to study. It is believed that by the year 2021, current global...