Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Helium Evolution’s first shipment of helium, from mid-October. Helium Evolution
MANKOTA – It’s been a long road, but there are now trucks rolling down that road, carrying Helium Evolution’s first product to market.
After four years as a helium explorer, drilling wells and entering into a joint venture with North American Helium, Helium Evolution has now been able to sell its first helium, produced near Mankota. Helium Evolution has made the transition from explorer to helium producer, a huge step for the company, and adding one more helium producer for Saskatchewan.
James Baker is the interim president and CEO. Greg Robb, who was the founding CEO, just recently retired.
Baker told Pipeline Online on Oct. 17, “This is our first sale of helium. We just filled our first trailer, and it is going to market as we speak. So it’s a big, big step for Helium Evolution, obviously, and we’re excited. We’ve been working with North American on this as joint partners, and I’m hopeful that moving forward, we’ll have more to do with them.
Helium Evolution initially drilled nine wells in south Mankota. If that area sounds familiar, it’s because Weil Helium built a processing plant there in 2016. After a few years, that plant was shut down, only to later be purchased by North American Helium, reactivated and expanded.
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Helium Evolution’s first couple wells were dry holes. They regrouped and started to shoot and purchase more seismic to understand the play better. Eventually they shifted their focus to work with North American Helium. North American has almost continually operated at least one drilling rig, and occasionally two, punching holes throughout southwest Saskatchewan. The undisputed leader in Saskatchewan’s helium play, the company now has 10 helium processing facilities.
“North American’s Mankotaplant is full,” Baker said. “So we partnered with NAH and built this plant to accommodate the three wells that we had discoveries on and we are now producing.”
The plant was built on a 20/80 ownership basis of Helium Evolution/North American Helium. It’s referred to as their Soda Lake facility. The result is one fifth of production from the Soda Lake plant is now Helium Evolution’s to sell on the market.
(This is not to be confused with Baytex Energy’s “Soda Lake” heavy oil area south of Maidstone.)
“We have a separate contract. North American has their own contract for their 80 per cent and we have 20 per cent, so we have a separate deal where we selling our helium to a third party,” Baker said.
Helium is processed to about 98 per cent purity, and the majority trucked to the United States for further processing to 99.999 per cent purity (“five nines”). At that point, it gains much higher value, because you need it at five nines to be able to be used in things like high tech applications, magnetic resonance imaging and space travel.
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Baker said, “We’ve been four years in the making. And I think what people have to understand is that this is wildcat exploration and it’s a new play. This is as risky as it gets. If you think of southeast Saskatchewan, I’m guessing there’s 30 or 40,000 oil wells, and wells that penetrate the bedrock in the Precambrian, I think there’s around 200 to date.”
Why penetrate the Precambrian granitic basement? That’s because the target formation is the Deadwood, the deepest formation in the stratigraphic column in southern Saskatchewan. But for helium producers, helium is produced by the decay of uranium and thorium in granitic basement rock. Over hundreds of millions of years, the helium escapes the Precambrian, and some of it accumulates in the Deadwood.
But you need incredibly tight cap rock to trap the helium , as helium is one of the smallest molecules in the periodic table and has a tendency to escape the porous rock.
As for why they actually penetrate the Precambrian, that’s because they need “overhole” to allow wireline logging tools to pass the target formation on its way down to provide a proper log.
“North American is the operator, and have all the staff to run this the facility and operate the wells, and we’re a joint venture partner. And like I say, you have to walk before you can run in this business, because the costs of building these plants are very high. It’s new technology and it’s expensive,” Baker said.
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Now that Helium Evolution will start seeing actual revenue, what’s next? Do they build up some cash reserves? Drill more wells?
“All of the above,” he said.
“So the plan is, with our cash flow, we’ve got G&A we’ve got to cover every year. We’ve got seismic and drilling costs coming up. Now, our cash flow helps to mitigate some of those costs. Because, up till now, when you’re four years in the making, all the money that we have spent is what our shareholders have put in. In 2025, we gained ENEOS as a partner, and they’ve been very good to work with.”
ENEOS is a large Japanese energy company, looking for exposure to sustainable commodities, he explained. “And as a result, they came to Canada, they came to Saskatchewan, actually.”
He thanked Saskatchewan Trade and Export, which introduced ENEOS to Helium Evolution. Eventually a deal was struck, and the company is Helium Evolution’s financial partner. To date, ENEOS has provided approximately $13 million, and Helium Evolution had previously raised approximately $17 million.
“ENEOS has been a very good partner. Their due diligence is second to none , and it just makes all of us better. I’m very pleased with that.”
They will continue to work in concert with North American. “We have more seismic to shoot now that we have this data and drilling results. After, we drill the wells, put them on stream and see how they perform. And if we like the way the performance is, then of course, we’ll go and shoot additional seismic to better define the play, and then look to drill more wells. We have other plays, but we’re just getting to those now. We’ve been very prudent with our money,” Baker said.
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Liquefaction?
The Soda Lake facility is North American’s 10th purification plant. That number is significant, because when then-Minister of Energy and Resources Bronwyn Eyre announced Saskatchewan’s Helium Action Plan in late 2021, it was pointed out you would need about 10 plants of this type to provide the critical mass necessary to move forward with the next part of the value stream, liquefaction.
Asked about that, Baker said, “The helium gets produced, and we get it to a certain level, 98 per cent pure. Then the trailers are filled, and they’re trucked down to the United States. And that’s where the final purification takes place, and liquefaction happens, where you basically cool and compress the helium so you can ship more in a smaller vessel.”
This is the guts of the Soda Lake helium processing facility. Helium Evolution
He continued, “So the fact that we produce it here, ship it to the States, have it purified and liquefied, and then we buy it back, makes no sense.
“There’s always been talk about building a liquefaction plant at Swift Current. That has not happened, because the capital cost on that is very high. So we need to get enough volume of helium produced in Saskatchewan which would justify the cost of building a liquefaction plant in Saskatchewan. All helium producers in the province would like to see a liquefaction plant.”
One of the difficulties Helium Evolution has faced it their inability to convince the federal government to qualify the company for flow-through shares and qualify for CDEs and CEEs, a key financial tool for Canadian mineral exploration companies.
“We’re drilling for helium as an exploration company, publicly traded, and we’ve applied to the federal government for four years to get flow-throughstatus and comparable tax pool treatment. With just a small change in legislation so that we qualify, it would put us on an equal footing with oil and gas and other critical mineral companies in Canada. We still haven’t got any changes from the federal government to allow us to qualify for that.”
With flow-through shares, he said, “If you invested $100,000 into Helium Evolution when you did your tax, you get a credit on your tax return because you invested in a high risk, publicly traded Canadian exploration company. And we have not been able to get that through the federal government. We are asking for what other exploration companies in Canada receive, we are asking for equal treatment, nothing more, nothing less”.
As for why, he refers to ongoing discourse between producing provinces and the Federal government relative to oil and gas related environmental issues.
The future looks bright for Helium Evolution, according to Baker.
(James Baker was notably honoured at the 2024 Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show as a “Southeast Saskatchewan Legend.”)
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