2019-09-02 Bloomberg Businessweek

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SoopersinLongmont,Colo.,providingfreekids’balloons,

forgetit:A signthereearlierthisyearindicatedthat“Dueto

theWorldwideHeliumShortagethatwearecurrentlyexperi-

encing,”visitingtotswerejustgoingtohavetolearnresilience.

W

henBluett andAbraham-Jamesfirst Googled

“helium”and“Tanzania”inNovember2013,the

namePeterBarrycameup.He’dpublishedon

heliumisotopesfoundinthecountryandwasworkinginthe

UniversityofOxfordlabofChrisBallentine,whowasaboutto

publishhistheoryonthecombinationoffactorsthatwould

generatea highaccumulationofthegas.

HeliumisproducedonEarthbythenaturalradioactive

decayofuraniumandthorium,whicharepresentinallrocks.

Butthatprocesstakesa longtime—asinbillionsofyears—so

you’dneedsomeseriouslyoldstones.Andbecausesuchold

rocksdon’thavea lotofgas-trappingformations,you’dneed

somegeologicactivitytobreakthemapartandformfractures

throughwhichtheheliumcouldescape.Thenyou’dneedheat

topushtheheliumupthroughthefractures,andsedimen-

taryformationatthesurfacetostoreit intrapsbetweenthe

layersofsediment,asina reservoir.

BallentineandcolleagueDiveenaDanabalanidentified

Tanzaniaasoneplacewiththiskindofinterplayatwork.

AncientrocksformedintheAfricantectonicplateabout

2 billionyearsago,makingthemsufficientlyoldforradio-

activedecaytoproducea lotofhelium.Thirtymillionyears

ago,theplatebegantopullapart,formingtheGreatRift

Valley,whichreaches1,700milesfromsouthernTanzaniaup

toEritreaandtheRedSea.Thatprocesscreatedfractures

thatallowmagmatoescape;themagmawouldprovidethe

heatnecessarytoforcetheheliumupward.Meanwhile,at

thesurface,sedimentsweredeposited,providingthereser-

voirswhereheliumcouldbefound.“Thatcombinationoffac-

torsmakespossibleheliumaccumulationatthesurface,”says

EmmanuelKazimoto,a geologylecturerattheUniversityof

DaresSalaam.

BluettandAbraham-JamesshowedBallentinetheoldpaper

they’dfound.“I’malwayssurprisedwhenoneofmytheories

turnsouttobecorrect,”Ballentinesays.“Butit wasabsolutely

obviousatthatmoment,havinglookedatwhatwouldmakea

goodheliumsystem,thatthiswasone.”HeandBarryagreed

tocomedowntoTanzaniatoresampleseepsfromthesprings

Jameshaddiscovered 58 yearsearlier.“Theyhadnoideahow

tocollecta samplelikethat,”Barrysays.“That’smyexpertise.”

InSeptember2015,BluettandAbraham-Jamesformeda

companytheycalledHeliumOneLtd.,withAbraham-James

asmanagingdirectorandBluettastechnicaldirector,and

acquiredthenecessarygovernmentlicenses.Acoupleof

months later, Abraham-James and Barry climbed into a rented

Toyota Land Cruiser to make the dusty drive to a salt pond in

Itumbula, a village in southwestern Tanzania 50 miles from

the Zambian border, where T.C. James had bottled high con-

centrations of helium. Barry ferried the samples to England to

analyze them with specialized equipment called a mass spec-

trometer, a more exact method than the instruments James

had used. The device confirmed James’s findings. “As we go

back year to year,” Barry says, “we see the same values, so it

gives us a lot of confidence in the measurements.”

Mtili extracts gas from a meter below ground, saving it in a bag

Bloomberg Businessweek / SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 THE ELEMENTS

O

nJuly5,KarimMtili,a 26-year-oldgeologygrad

student at the University of Dar es Salaam, walks out

onto a berm constructed to facilitate access to the

salt pond in Itumbula. He’s wearing soccer shorts, a white

T-shirt, and Crocs-like rubber boots and holding an empty

plastic water bottle, a large funnel, and a copper tube. People

have been collecting salt here for probably 10,000 years, and

today it’s the main source of income in Itumbula, a village

three hours from the nearest hospital with no paved roads,

where most residents live in small shacks with a single light-

bulb. But Helium One might be able to change things. Royalties

from the helium it discovered there could be worth more than

11% of Tanzania’s annual gross domestic product.

Mtiliis heretocollectthelastsetofhundredsofsamples

ofgasseepingfromthesaltpondbeforetheworktomap

subsurface reservoirs begins later this year. He wades into the

water as white egrets tiptoe around the shallow edges of the

pond and cattle in the distance audibly air their grievances.

“Do you see all these bubbles?” Mtili asks with excitement. At

least 15 seeps are visible, creating air pockets from the pond’s

floor that rise to the surface at varying frequencies. “If it was

coming from the same source, it would be flowing at the same

rate. So that explains the percentage differences in different

samples,” he says.

Standing in water up to his crotch, Mtili submerges the

funnel and bends down to push the wide end into the pond’s

muddy bottom. With his other hand, he raises the tube so

the gas can rise into it. “You have to fill all this with water and

let the seep gas displace the water,” he says. Wading deeper

into the pond, he calls in Swahili to Godfrey Myega, a local

who helps out sometimes and has stripped down to his boxer

shorts for the task. The big man squeals as he steps into the

hot water, carrying in Mtili’s upturned baseball hat some glass

vials and small vacuum-sealed bags that will be filled with gas

and, later, connected to the mass spectrometer in Mtili’s hotel

room, four hours away. “This rock that I’m sitting on is pretty,

pretty hot,” Mtili says.

Bluett and Abraham-James found geophysical surveys of the

area that Amoco Corp., now part of BP Plc, had conducted

in the 1980s while looking for oil. It didn’t locate any oil but,

just as Ballentine predicted, spotted a bounty of sedimentary

traps where helium could accumulate. “Seismic techniques can

image the subsurface, so you can look and say you have this

much gas,” Barry says. Samples such as those Mtili was col-

lecting show the percentage of this gas that’s helium. “Then