South Africa's hidden helium

South Africa is well known for its gold reserves, but something more valuable has now been discovered - helium.

Helium is used to blow up party balloons, but it's also an important technological component in medical scanners, microchips and space exploration. However, it's produced in fewer than 10 countries in the world.

Roughly 10 years ago, South African natural gas company Renergen bought an enormous site of 87,000 hectares - for the tiny sum of $1. Natural gas often includes small amounts of helium. However, when the gas from this area was analysed, they were shocked to find so much helium. Stefano Marani was particularly surprised.

Stefano Marani: ("What was your reaction when you found out?") - "I can't say that on camera!" [laughter]

Finding helium in the first place was incredible. But the actual level of helium was far higher than expected, by comparison with other countries.

Stefano Marani: "The United States produces at around 0.35 percent. Our average is 3.4 percent, so already we're, we're 10 times higher than the United States and that's our average. We have wells over here at 12 percent, which are completely unprecedented and never seen before."

Renergen believes they may own 9.74 billion cubic metres of helium, which is considerably more than the present US supply. If this is so, it's estimated to be worth over $100 billion. Production could well be the greenest in the world because removal will be simple.

It'll certainly be interesting from an engineering and scientific point of view.

Stefano Marani: "It's, it's stimulating from a science, from a chemistry perspective, from a physics perspective, from an engineering perspective. There's all of these cool things going on. And then overlaid with the physics and the chemistry, you've got logistics and you've got, you know, the fact that we're dual-listed on, you know, on, on two stock exchanges. There's, there's a lot going on in this project. And there, there are a lot of layers to peel away on it. But it, it's, it's a fantastic job, it really is."

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