Natural gas and helium producer Renergen has announced the start of commercial sales of liquid helium.
With aims to regularly fill Dewars of between 250 and 500 liters with liquid helium, Renergen achieved cooling levels of -269˚C on March 13. The company’s sale was achieved the following day.
Natural gas to produce liquid helium was sourced from the company’s Virginia Gas Project, situated in the Free State Province of South Africa. Renergen estimates the project is able to generate between R5.7 billion ($313.7 million) and R6.2 billion (341.2 million) one Phase 1 and Phase 2 are in full production.
Phase 1 of the project aims to produce 350kg of liquid helium per day in tandem with 2,700 gigajoules of LNG per day. Phase 2 aims to produce 4,200kg of liquid helium per day and roughly 34,400 gigajoules of LNG.
