|
Helium production in the United States totaled 73 million cubic meters in 2014. The US was the world's largest helium producer, providing 40 percent of world supply. In addition, the US federal government sold 30 million cubic meters from storage. Other major helium producers were Algeria and Qatar. All commercial helium is recovered from natural gas. Helium usually makes up a minuscule portion of natural gas, but can make up as much as 10 percent of natural gas in some fields. A helium content of 0.3 percent or more is considered necessary for commercial helium extraction.〔(Helium ), Geology.Com.〕 In 2012, helium was recovered at 16 extraction plants, from gas wells in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming. One extraction plant in Utah was idle in 2012. ==History== In 1903, an oil exploration well at Dexter, Kansas produced a gas that would not burn. Kansas state geologist Erasmus Haworth took samples of the gas back to the University of Kansas at Lawrence where chemists Hamilton Cady and David McFarland discovered that gas contained 1.84 percent helium. This led to further discoveries of helium-bearing natural gas in Kansas. The military was interested in helium for balloons and dirigibles. The US Army built the first heliume extraction plant in 1915 at Petrolia, Texas, where a large natural gas field contained averaged nearly 1 percent helium.〔(Petrolia oilfield ), Texas State Historical Association.〕 The United States Navy established three experimental helium plants during World War I, to recover enough helium to supply barrage balloons with the non-flammable, lighter-than-air gas. Two of the experimental plants were north of Fort Worth, Texas, and recovered helium from natural gas piped in from the Petrolia oil field in Clay County, Texas.〔Adam Alsobrook, (Taking preservation lightly ), Texas Historical Commission, 22 Aug. 2013.〕 The mineral lands leasing act, which provided for oil and gas leasing on federal land, reserved all helium contained in natural gas on federal land to the government. During World War II, military demand for helium rose, so the federal government built a number of new helium extraction plants. One such plant was at Shiprock, New Mexico, to recover helium from gas at the Rattlesnake Field. Gas from the Rattlesnake field, like that of a number of other fields in the Four Corners area, contained almost no hydrocarbons, and was produced exclusively for the helium.〔("Helium in New Mexico," ) ''New Mexico Geology'', v.27 n.4.〕 The Helium Acts Amendments of 1960 (Public Law 86–777) empowered the U.S. Bureau of Mines to arrange for five private plants to recover helium from natural gas. The Bureau also built a pipeline from Bushton, Kansas, to connect those plants with the government's partially depleted Cliffside gas field, near Amarillo, Texas. The crude helium (50 percent to 80 percent helium) was injected and stored in the Cliffside gas field until needed, when it then was further purified. By 1995, a billion cubic meters of the gas had been stored, but the reserve was US$1.4 billion in debt, prompting the Congress of the United States in 1996 to phase out the reserve.〔Stwertka, Albert (1998). ''Guide to the Elements: Revised Edition''. New York; Oxford University Press, p. 24. ISBN 0-19-512708-0〕 The resulting "Helium Privatization Act of 1996"〔Helium Privatization Act of 1996 〕 (Public Law 104–273) directed the United States Department of the Interior to empty the reserve.〔(【引用サイトリンク】Executive Summary )〕 Sales to government and government contractor began in 1998. Sales to the open market began in 2003. The sales program paid the indebtedness, and is still selling helium. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Helium production in the United States」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|