Helium: A Commodity With Increased Potential From Quantum Computing Industry?
There’s much to be said for helium and quantum computing. If, in fact, quantum computing comes to fruition in such form that requires extreme temperatures, helium as a commodity could take off. Then again, there’s a lot of talk of a helium shortage. You decide. Not offering advice, just bringing you the information. Recommend reading from the source, below. Because Quantum is Coming. Qubit
Renergen’s deal with Argonon could create the first ever helium spot market
+ South African natural gas and helium producer Renergen’s (ASX:RLT) deal with helium trader Argonon could be the catalyst to establishing more pricing transparency in the sector, the company said today. RLT has just completed a helium forward sale agreement for 100,000 units – each representing a thousand standard cubic feet (MCF) – at 99.999% purity over 19 years, to Argonon.
+ Helium spot market
To put this in context, the global helium market is undersupplied and consumes around 6 million units per year. And by the time Renergen’s Virginia gas project license in South Africa expires in 2042, demand is anticipated to be sitting at around 126 million units. That’s assuming there’s no growth in demand in the meantime.
+ Currently, the market is constrained by plant outages, disrupted shipping routes, and reduced upstream production, which should be eased in the short-term with Qatar and Russia bringing more capacity online. But given the increasing global focus on reducing fossil fuel production, lower concentration helium fields are likely to come under pressure since more associated methane is produced to extract the same volume of helium – which will place additional constraint on future supplies.
+ Helium isn’t currently trading in the spot market and a visible price per MCF is not available. That’s where the collaboration between Renergen and Argonon comes in, Argonon CEO Richard Charrington said. The idea is to bring transparency of pricing to the helium market and highlight the growing global importance of helium.
“Whilst 100,000 units is less than 0.1% of the global helium market over the term of our contract, we believe this transaction is a ground-breaking step in bringing helium to the financial markets and will pave the way for its inclusion into more mainstream commodities,” Charrington said.
+ “Like with so many other commodities, it will start small and is likely to be traded by those who have researched it and understand the future potential with emerging technologies such as quantum computing and in time, may become much more mainstream in similar way lithium did several years ago.”
Source: STOCKHEAD. STOCKHEAD, Renergen’s deal with Argonon could create the first ever helium spot market…
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