Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve (2010) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Summary
Summary
Pages 5-13
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 5... ...
The Federal Helium Reserve,1 managed by the Bureau of Land Management 1 The Federal Helium Reserve (also referred to here as the Helium Reserve or the Reserve) consists of (1)
|
From page 6... ...
As of this writing in late 2009, the Federal Helium Reserve contained slightly more than 18 billion cubic feet of federally owned helium, with a value of approximately $1.2 billion using BLM's current posted price of $64.75 per thousand cubic feet. 2As discussed more fully in the section of Chapter 1 entitled "Review of the 2000 Report's Conclu sions," the 1996 Act called for an Academy study to determine if such disposal would have a sub stantial adverse effect on U.S.
|
From page 7... ...
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Specific Recommendations for Immediate Improvements To address these issues, the committee first lays out three specific recommendations for improving the federal helium program: changing the methods for pricing the helium being sold, committing more resources to managing the physical facilities at the Federal Helium Reserve, and providing assistance for small-scale scientists by expanding the sales program for government users to include them and promoting conservation and reuse by these users. Pricing Mechanism The 1996 Act set minimum selling prices, adjusted for inflation, for crude helium held by the BLM such that the sale of that helium at those prices would generate sufficient revenue to repay the federal government for what it originally spent to purchase the helium and to build the supporting infrastructure, plus interest.
|
From page 8... ...
Such policies are likely to require that BLM negotiate with the companies owning helium refining facilities connected to the Helium Pipeline the conditions under which unused refin ing capacity at those facilities will be made available to all buyers of federally owned crude helium, thereby allowing them to process the crude helium they purchase into refined helium for commercial sale. Management of the Resere An additional aspect of the 1996 Act that has significant -- and undesirable, in the judgment of this committee -- implications for the overall management of the Helium Reserve is the Act's requirement that the sale of federally owned crude helium is to take place on a straight-line basis.4 The mandated constant extraction rate conflicts with standard practices for the exploitation of this type of reservoir, which is that production rates vary over the economic life of a deposit, typically declining over time.
|
From page 9... ...
The committee, composed of individuals from a wide range of professions -- economists, business people, and scientists -- notes that small-scale scientists were particularly hard hit by price shocks and interruptions in the supply of refined helium during that time. An informal poll conducted by committee members of approximately 40 research programs at universities and national laboratories that use helium indicated that shortages of liquid helium interrupted the helium supply for almost half of these programs, with some interruptions lasting for weeks at a time during the late summer and fall of both 2006 and 2007.
|
From page 10... ...
The crude helium in-kind program and its associated customer priorities should be extended by the Bureau of Land Management, in cooperation with the main federal agencies not currently participating in the in-kind program -- for example, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the extramural grant programs of the Department of Energy -- to research being funded in whole or in part by government grants. In addition to recommending that these users be allowed to participate in the in-kind program, the committee believes that the conservation and reuse of helium by these users should be promoted by the agencies funding this research.
|
From page 11... ...
collecting and making available the information needed to more effectively manage the Federal Helium Reserve and to formulate future helium policy and (2) initiating strategies to develop a more comprehensive long-term program for meeting the nation's helium needs.
|
From page 12... ...
The Bureau of Land Management should promptly inves tigate the feasibility of extending the Helium Pipeline to other fields with deposits of commercially available helium as a way of prolonging the pro ductive life of the Federal Helium Reserve and the refining facilities con nected to it. Recommendation.
|
From page 13... ...
For example, the legislative framework for the operation of the federal helium program is silent on the management of the Federal Helium Reserve after January 1, 2015, the mandated date for disposal of substantially all federally owned crude helium. What is to be done with the remaining federally owned crude helium?
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.