Neil McDonald (left) during a proof-of-concept exercise with extracted helium. (ABC Rural: Isabella Kelly)
In short:
Gold Hydrogen has announced plans for commercial helium production at its Yorke Peninsula site.
It will be the first time helium is produced in Australia since 2023.
What's next?
The plant is expected to be up and running within 18 months.
Australia's only commercial helium production is expected to begin on the Yorke Peninsula within 18 months, aiming to address a global shortage of the rare and vital gas.
Three months after it first extracted the gas at its Ramsay 1 site just outside Port Vincent, Gold Hydrogen has announced plans to turn the project commercial.
It would be the first helium production in Australia in three years.
While additional testing and approvals are required before a commercial plant can begin, managing director Neil McDonald said he was feeling positive.
"Based on the robust numbers, not of just having the world's best helium purities ever reported, but all our geology and all the economics, we're very confident."
The drilling process involves an almost 900-metre-deep hole in the ground. (ABC Rural: Isabella Kelly)
As part of commercialisation, a modular helium plant "the size of two tennis courts" will be constructed on the company's 75,000-square-kilometre Yorke Peninsula tenement, creating additional jobs.
"As we progress with working out the feasibility ... we'll be able to then isolate what type of specialty jobs and ongoing normal jobs would be available," Mr McDonald said.
"But it will be reasonably significant for the size of York Peninsula."
Addressing a shortage
Helium has not been produced in Australia since Santos's Darwin LNG plant exhausted its supply in 2023, and at the time there was little concern about supply constraints.
But a global shortage has developed after about a third of the world's helium supply was taken out by Iranian missile strikes on Qatar's Ras Laffan gas plant in March.
Mr McDonald said he believed there was enough helium at the Yorke Peninsula site for "tens of years" of domestic and international supply.
Gold Hydrogen's Ramsay 1 site, just outside Port Vincent, has produced helium gas. (ABC Rural: Isabella Kelly)
There is an estimated 41 billion cubic feet (BCF) of the gas in total at just one of the company's seven permits.
"To give that context, the world consumes approximately 5BCF of helium per year," Mr McDonald said.
Next steps
Mr McDonald said local and international markets were interested.
"Our initial plan is to scale up and make sure that we can supply initially the domestic market and get as much supply into the domestic market as we can," he said.
"But like all commodities ... quite often Australia produces a lot more than they can ever consume."