The Bureau of Land Management plans to auction and sell government-owned crude helium from the Federal Helium Reserve in August. The Federal Helium Program is responsible for conserving and selling federally-owned helium. The BLM operates and maintains a helium storage reservoir, enrichment plant and pipeline system near Amarillo that supplies enough helium to meet more than 40 percent of U.S. domestic demand. Under the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013, Congress established an auction system to sell crude helium from the reserve and ordered that all property, equipment and interest in the reserve be disposed of by Sept. 30, 2021. To accomplish the law’s objectives, the BLM developed a plan last year to provide for an orderly transition to a privatized helium system. The plan included helium auctions and conservation helium sales that allow continued access to helium supplies for federal users and disposing of the government’s helium assets by 2021. Last year’s auction of 92 million cubic feet, netted nearly $15 million for the U.S. Treasury. This year’s helium auction has tentatively been set for 1 p.m. Aug. 19, in the Happy State Bank Virgil Patterson Auditorium. 701 S. Taylor St. Robert Jolley, field manager of the BLM’s Amarillo Field Office, said the government plans to auction off 300 million cubic feet of helium in several distinct lots during the auction. The BLM, he said, then will conduct a conservation helium sale and sell 600 million cubic feet of helium to private party refiners that already are linked to a 450-mile pipeline that extends from the Cliffside Gas Field, 12 miles northwest of Amarillo, to Bushton, Kan. Helium is used to test rocket engines, in welding, commercial diving and semiconductor chips as well as for weather and party balloons.
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