Modern Mining February 2022

Virginia Gas Project is commissioned in 2022. Renergen is contracted to deliver, over a five-year period, 14 t of LNG per day. Earlier this year, the clean energy producer con- cluded a deal with the ceramics industry to supply Italtile LNG from Phase 1 of its operations. The five-year agreement with Italtile will see the miner supply 800 gigajoules of LNG per day to the customer’s site. Renergen’s export market for helium will in future include the USA, Europe and China. Helium market in critical supply constraints The helium crisis has been on-going since 2019. It was anticipated that increased production from Russia’s Amur Gas Processing Plant (GPP) plant, coupled with new production from Qatar coming online, the market would finally transition from tight supply to one of plentiful supply. But this has not been the case. In early January, the fire at GPP in Russia rocked

Above: Helium loading station in construction.

Left: First tall structure is the mine wash to remove CO 2 . .

the Virginia project will outlive the current production right.” Following the completion of a recent drilling programme, a reserve estimate by international Reserves and Resources accreditation agency Sproule pointed to a significant increase in methane and helium reserves at the Virginia Gas project. “Increasing our helium reserves by over 600% since March 2019 is a great step forward in achiev- ing our goal and highlights the enormous potential of Virginia to become a significant helium supplier not only to South Africa but globally as well. Additionally, an estimated 400 petajoules of methane at a proven 2P level also positions the company exceedingly well to become an integral part of South Africa’s energy mix,” Marani explains.. The junior miner has already inked a number of off-take agreements, including its first agreement with Consol Glass, effective once Phase 1 of the

Heat exchangers remove the heat during liquefaction.

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