Helium Production
Source: The Handbook of Texas Online
Helium, a light, nonflammable,
chemically inert gas, was first produced in Texas from the
natural gases of the Petrolia oilfield, in Clay County, during
World War I. Experimental plants were constructed in that area by
the Bureau of Mines with funds allotted by the Army and Navy
Departments to obtain nonexplosive helium as a replacement for
the explosive hydrogen used in observation balloons and airships.
Later, a large-scale plant was built in Fort Worth under the
jurisdiction of the Navy Department, and operated for the
government by the Linde Air Products Company.
On July 1, 1925, the government assumed control of all helium
production in the nation. In 1927, the Bureau of Mines began
negotiations for control of gas rights in fee on a 50,000-acre,
helium-bearing natural gas structure known as the Cliffside
Field, in Potter County near Amarillo. In 1928, the government
began construction of a helium-extraction plant near Amarillo,
which began production in April 1929. In that same year the Fort
Worth helium plant closed because Petrolia supplies had been
depleted.
In 1934 the Bureau of Mines completed
negotiations for the Cliffside helium field, and for a number of
years the plant at Amarillo was the sole producer of commercial
helium in the world. Texas produced 96,884,410 cubic feet of
helium valued at $619,345 in 1944, and 69,808,454 cubic feet
valued at $460,015 in 1945.
At the Amarillo plant natural gas is reduced to a temperature of
about -300°F, at which point most components except helium
liquify; the still-gaseous helium is drawn off. The natural gas,
once restored to normal temperature, burns more readily and is
sold to local gas companies. The entire process for each cubic
foot of natural gas passing through the plant occupies less than
one minute.
Helium is shipped under pressures of
1,800 to 2,000 pounds per square inch in small containers or
specially designed tank cars. One thousand cubic feet of the 98.2
percent pure helium produced at Amarillo could lift approximately
64½ pounds.
Beginning in 1937 the Bureau of Mines was authorized to sell
helium to private concerns for medical, scientific, and
commercial use. In 1939 it sold for $13 to $15 per thousand cubic
feet. In addition to its main use in floating balloons and
airships, helium has been used in a mixture with oxygen to
relieve asthma and other respiratory diseases, for welding
magnesium, aluminum, and stainless steel, and in radio tubes,
electrical searchlights, and deep-sea diving equipment.
In 1964, an estimated 95 percent of the world's recoverable
helium was produced within a 250-mile radius of Amarillo. Three
new plants, which began operating in that year, doubled existing
capacity, resulting in refined helium production of 304,909,000
cubic feet valued at $10,672,000, and crude production of
1,751,924,000 cubic feet valued at $18,812,000.
In 1968 helium was extracted from
natural gas at federal plants in Amarillo and Exell in Moore
County, and at two Phillips Petroleum privately owned plants in
Moore and Hansford counties. Refined helium production in Texas
in 1968 stood at 365,000,000 cubic feet, valued at $9,560,000,
and crude production at 1,043,700,000 cubic feet, valued at
$11,428,000. Crude unrefined helium was placed in underground
storage for conservation purposes at the government's Cliffside
gas field near Amarillo. By the time the helium industry
celebrated its centennial at Amarillo in 1968, Potter County was
the "Helium Capital of the World."
In 1970 four extraction plants operated in Texas, including two
Bureau of Mines plants and two Phillips Petroleum Company plants
in Moore and Hansford counties. The bureau's Amarillo plant shut
down that year, but the Exell plant was modernized. In 1970
high-purity helium production totalled 141,000,000 cubic feet,
valued at $4,917,000, and crude helium production 1,190,000,000
cubic feet, valued at $13,053,000.
Production declined from 1974, when
crude helium production dropped to 35,000,000 cubic feet valued
at $420,000 and no pure helium production was reported, until
1980, when high-purity helium production, the only kind reported,
totalled 38,000,000 cubic feet valued at 874,000. In 1990, when
helium was used in cryogenics, leak detection, and synthetic
breathing mixtures, production estimates were no longer recorded,
as output and value of crude helium plummeted, and helium in
Texas was recovered chiefly by Air Products and Chemicals,
Incorporated, in Hansford County. Trend watchers in the industry,
however, anticipated increased production to supply the demand
created by the development of new high-tech products.
In mid-1993, a controversy arose when the Bureau of Mines
continued to stockpile helium at a time when the government sold
only about 10 percent of the helium it produced, and raised its
prices to a point that allowed private helium producers to sell
at lower prices. Others questioned the bureau's helium policy
after it borrowed $252 million in 1960 in response to fears of
shortages spawned by the nation's growing space program. Though
it claimed the figure was meaningless since the government simply
owed money to itself and the General Accounting Office had agreed
the debt should be cancelled, the Bureau of Mines was responsible
for $1.3 billion of the national deficit by 1993 as interest
accrued. To complicate the issue further, private interests
claimed that if the debt was forgiven, government-produced helium
could then be sold cheaper than privately produced helium.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pertaining to Helium (Amarillo: Chamber of
Commerce, 1939). U.S. Bureau of Mines, Minerals Yearbook. Bobby
D. Weaver, ed., Panhandle Petroleum (Amarillo: Miller National
Corporation, 1982).
Diana J. Kleiner