Helium prices are heading to the moon
“…There is money to be spent. It will deliver hopefully, exceptional returns for all Helium One shareholders…”
Serendipity is an unplanned fortunate discovery and a common occurrence throughout the history of product invention and scientific discovery.
It has also played its part in boosting Helium One’s share price by 44% over two days.
In the Tanzanian helium explorer’s case, its preferred, but inaccessible rig came back into play when their second choice rig was immobilized with an eleventh hour legal challenge. Not Helium One’s fault or the rig operators.
Blame is academic because out goes Predator, the 100 tonne mast waiting drill and returning is ‘The Exalo Rig’ which Helium chief executive David Minchin says is currently drilling “at over three and a half 1000 meters in its existing operations. So it’s going three times further than the depth which we’re trying to test out in Rukwa. It can easily achieve what we needed to achieve and we know that it’s in tip top working shape.”
It’s going to be the workhorse for Helium’s Phase II drilling campaign due to commence in Q1 2023. It’s also, says Minchin, allowing the company to “continue our development to this project without there being a delay to either the start of drilling or there being an increase in the cost of drilling. So in many ways, it’s been a win win.”
The news about the preferred rig coincided with NASA signing a deal to secure 1.2 billion cubic feet of helium over the next five years at an average price of $920 per MCF. Another episode of serendipity? Minchin quotes the NASA scientists and their expectations ‘helium prices are heading to the moon in the medium term.’
In the long term the company has a lot of ground to cover. It’s got 3000 square kilometers of licenses and according to Minchin Helium One has done info seismic on less than 10% of that.
In the short term Minchin tells Sarah Lowther he is allowing himself to “get a little bit excited about the prospect of getting boots back on the ground, turning the rotary lie detector and finding out what we’ve actually got down and subsurface.”
Watch David speaks to Proactive London about how the change of rigs should not affect plans to get drilling underway in the first quarter of 2023.
Access the company’s latest corporate presentation
Follow the company on Twitter @Heliumone1
The author was remunerated but does not hold shares in the company
