Air Products and MATHESON, a member of the Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation (TNSC) group, have announced that on-site construction has commenced on a new, jointly-owned liquid helium production plant near Big Piney, Wyoming.
The plant, designed to produce 200 million standard cubic feet per year at start-up, with expectations for future expansion to 400 million standard cubic feet per year, will process crude helium produced by a natural gas processing facility operated by Cimarex Energy Co.
After the recent news that the price of crude helium for open market sales would be increasing by 15.8% due to a revised pricing methodology from the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), news of the Big Piney, Wyoming development will comes as a light breath of fresh air.
While the new joint venture plant will only represent around a 3% increment to world supply, it is likely to be the only new capacity expected to come online before 2013, gasworld understands.
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