After striking the highest gas pressure yet, Pulsar Helium has begun drilling a sixth appraisal well at its project site near Babbitt.
Pulsar Helium’s fifth helium well at the site, Jetstream #5, has been drilled to 3,839 feet, hitting initial gas at about 837 feet, a second gas-bearing zone at approximately 1,481 feet and an additional gas influx at about 2,857 feet where a calculated bottom-hole pressure of approximately 1,292 psi was recorded, the company said.
To date, it’s the highest gas pressure recorded among the five wells drilled at its Topaz project site, Pulsar Helium said.
It’s another positive sign of a significant, rich helium deposit at the site.
Pulsar Helium in 2024 struck helium in its first appraisal well at the site.
With completion of the fifth well, drilling of a sixth well began Tuesday, Jan. 27, Pulsar Helium said.
Plans are to drill the sixth well to 3,000 feet deep with a possibility of going to 5,000 feet deep, according to the company.
The sixth appraisal well, 1.3 miles southwest of the first well, is another step toward increasing the size and mapping of the resource, the company said.
Th e international helium developer has said it plans to drill up to 10 appraisal wells at the site.
However, as the fifth well was being completed, drillers ran into a problem.
While removing the drill string (drill pipe) from the well at its total depth, difficulties were encountered, Pulsar Helium said.
As a result, 1,239 feet of drill string was left in the well, the company said, All options to remove the remaining drill string are being evaluated, Pulsar Helium said.
Plans are to return to the well in April to retrieve or bypass the segment of drill string, allowing full logging and flow testing of the entire 3,839 feet of formation, Pulsar Helium said.
Pulsar Helium hopes to develop a commercial helium project at the site.
If developed, it would be Minnesota’s first commercial helium project.
The site contains helium-4, helium- 3 and CO2, Pulsar Helium said.
The site lies amid the Duluth Complex, the world’s largest known undeveloped deposit of minerals.
The complex is estimated to hold about 9.4 billion tons of copper, nickel, cobalt, and platinum group metals.
The Pulsar Helium appraisal wells have confirmed a laterally extensive helium-rich gas reservoir beneath the project lands, indicating a high-quality helium resource, the company said.
All of the appraisal wells are on private land.
Pulsar Helium holds mineral rights on 4,181 acres of private land at the site.
Pulsar Helium has exclusive leases over the project area, the company said.
Pulsar Helium’s first well at the site, Jetstream #1, struck helium about 50 feet away from a Duluth Metals drill hole that in 2011 found helium while conducting exploration for copper and nickel.
Pulsar Helium also has a helium project in Greenland called Tunu.
