Global Helium Atlas Licence


Highlights

  • Noble Helium executes exclusive licence for Global Helium Atlas, for up to five years.
  • Global database constructed by world’s leading helium geoscientists, Dr. Jon Gluyas of Durham University, UK, and Dr. Chris Ballentine of Oxford University, UK.
  • Underpins Noble Helium’s strategy to build a diversified, high-impact global helium portfolio, including Tanzania.

 

Noble Helium Limited (ASX:NHE) (“Noble Helium”, “NHE” or “the Company”) executed the agreement, as outlined in its IPO Prospectus, that provides Noble Helium with exclusive access to the world’s first and only Global Atlas of Helium Occurrences and Exploration Play Fairway Analysis (“Atlas”), constructed by two of the world’s leading helium geoscientists, Professor Jon Gluyas of Durham University, UK and Professor Chris Ballentine of Oxford University, UK.

The Atlas is a unique and difficult to reproduce resource that provides NHE with significant competitive advantage to allow it to find and secure additional high potential helium opportunities. Significantly, the licencing agreement provides for ongoing technical support from Professors Gluyas and Ballentine, with their biographies summarised in Appendix 1.

Appendix 1: About Professors Gluyas and Ballentine

Dr. Chris Ballentine is the Chair of geochemistry and head of department of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. He uses properties of the noble gases to understand the origin and evolution of Earth’s atmosphere and mantle.

Dr Ballentine earned his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in 1992. He went on to hold research positions at the Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland, the University of Michigan, and ETH Zurich, Switzerland. From 2001 to 2013, he held positions at the University of Manchester before joining the faculty at the University of Oxford.

Dr Ballentine has held the vice president, president, and past president positions with the European Association of Geochemistry. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Oxford Museum of Natural History and the American Geophysical Union, as well as a former scientific steering committee member for the Deep Carbon Observatory. In 2008, he won the Geological Society of London Bigsby medal for significant contributions to geology. The AGU chose Ballentine as a Fellow in 2013, and in 2016, he won the Eni Award, given to researchers who make advanced scientific breakthroughs in the field of energy, for “New Frontiers of Hydrocarbons”.

Dr Jon Gluyas is Executive Director of the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University in the UK. He is also the Ørsted/Ikon Chair in Geoenergy, Carbon Capture & Storage in the Department of Earth Sciences at Durham.

Dr Gluyas earned his Ph.D. at the University of Liverpool in 1981. He spent the early part of his career working in the oil and gas industry for BP Exploration, Acorn Oil & Gas and Fairfield Energy before moving into academic roles in 2010. In 2000, Dr Gluyas was awarded the Aberconway Medal by the Geological Society of London.

Dr Gluyas and Dr Ballentine worked together on a research project sponsored by Statoil in 2005 that confirmed major helium potential in Tanzania’s East African Rift Valley. Until this point, helium had only ever been found by accident when looking for petroleum gas. This research programme was designed to understand the source, maturation, migration and accumulation of helium in the Earth’s crust.

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