Blue Star expands helium footprint in highly prospective Colorado region

Special Report: Blue Star has expanded its landholding in Colorado ahead of its expected helium drilling campaign in the fourth quarter this year.

The company has acquired another 5,365 net acres from private mineral owners, taking its total lease position up to 129,561 gross acres (73,486 net acres).

“The acquisition of an additional 5,356 net acres further consolidates Blue Star’s land position in the highly prospective Las Animas region, where we now hold about 130,000 gross acres across 11 prospects and leads,” Blue Star Helium (ASX:BNL) managing director Joanne Kendrick says.

“We have several exciting months ahead of us as we progress to our drilling program in Q4 this year, and we are working hard to add more prospects into that drilling program.”

Blue Star has already identified the potential for the Enterprise and Galileo prospects to host prospective resources of 3 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of helium.

This leaves the potential for more helium to be found at the remaining nine prospects which are all located in the highly prospective Las Animas region in Colorado.

Blue Star Helium’s current lease position Pic: Supplied

Helium a valuable commodity

Helium is a dwindling commodity that is vital in a number of modern technology applications such as MRI’s and nuclear medicine. It is also critical for fibre optic cable manufacturing, hard disc manufacturing and cooling, rocketry and space exploration.

While it is traditionally a low concentration by-product of natural gas production, Blue Star is targeting high helium concentration accumulations.

The last published price from the Bureau of Land Management auction, which has historically served as a “de facto” crude price for plant-gate helium sales, averaged $US280 ($385) per thousand cubic feet.

This is more than 100 times the August Henry Hub average natural gas price of $US2.30 per million British Thermal Units, which is the amount of energy produced by 1000 cubic feet of gas, neatly demonstrating the high value of helium gas.

This article was developed in collaboration with Blue Star Helium, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.