Development and Dissemination of a Nationwide Helium Database for a National Assessment of Helium Resources.

Abstract:

In 2013, Congress passed the Helium Stewardship Act requiring the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to undertake a national helium gas resource assessment to determine the nation’s helium resources. An important initial component necessary to complete this assessment was the development of a comprehensive database of Helium (He) concentrations from petroleum exploration wells. Because Helium is often used as the carrier gas for compositional analyses for commercial and exploratory oil and gas wells, this limits the available helium concentration data. A literature search in peer-reviewed publications, state geologic survey databases, USGS energy geochemical databases, and the Bureau of Land Management databases provided approximately 16,000 data points from wells that had measurable He concentrations in the gas composition analyses. The data from these wells includes, date of sample collection, American Petroleum Institute well number, formation name, field name, depth of sample collection, and location. The gas compositional analyses, some performed as far back as 1934, do not all have the same level of precision and accuracy, therefore the date of the analysis is critical to the assessment as it indicates the relative amount of uncertainty in the analytical results. Non-proprietary data was used to create a GIS based interactive web interface that allows users to visualize, inspect, interact, and download our most current He data. The user can click on individual locations to see the available data at that location, as well as zoom in and out on a data density map. Concentrations on the map range from .04 mol% (lowest concentration of economic value) to 12% (highest naturally occurring values). This visual interface will allow users to develop a rapid appreciation of the areas with the highest potential for high helium concentrations within oil and gas fields.