Mendell Helium (AIM:MDH) on Tuesday commented that the US Department of Energy's decision to add helium to its official Critical Materials list under the Energy Act of 2020 reinforces the strategic position of its producing Kansas assets.
It is the latest London-listed small-cap helium firm to highlight the apparent breakthrough since the DOE made the designation on 23 October, citing helium's non-substitutable role in semiconductor manufacturing, quantum computing and defence supply chains and the vulnerability of US supply chains across those sectors.
Mendell Helium, which trades on AIM, has been extracting, processing and selling helium at surface from its Fort Dodge project and its Hugoton assets in Kansas since 2024.
The Fort Dodge region holds an independently evaluated prospective helium resource of 5.34 billion cubic feet (Bcf) gross on a P50, or mid-estimate, basis, according to a competent person's report by Double L Engineering published on 30 April.
That same report set out a resource range of 2.12 Bcf at the P90 low estimate to 9.78 Bcf at the P10 high estimate, and, applying an illustrative helium price of $300 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf), implied a notional in-ground value of between $636 million and $2.934 billion across that range.
Mendell Helium's Rost 1-26 well, which came onstream in November 2025, has flowed at 5.1% helium composition, while the newer Rost 2-26 well has returned helium concentrations of up to 11.5%, the company said.
The company is preparing a four-well drilling programme at Fort Dodge aimed at scaling daily flow rates and expanding commercial offload capacity, with drilling locations already identified.
"The US Department of Energy's designation of helium as a Critical Material is a defining moment for our industry," said Nick Tulloch, chief executive of Mendell Helium.
Read more about Mendell Helium
- 21/10/26Mendell Helium identifies five new Fort Dodge drilling sites
- 09/10/26Mendell Helium buys out minority stake in Nilson well
- 17/04/26Mendell Helium receives proposal to boost output
"It is interesting to note that at the gasworld Helium Super Summit, 56% of delegates surveyed predicted that only a minority of new projects would reach commercial operations," he said, adding that companies already in production "will therefore command a premium" and that offtaker and midstream enquiries now reflect that.
The CPR noted the possibility that "a giant unconventional resource of helium-enriched nitrogen exists" at Fort Dodge, though it cautioned the prospective resource estimates are illustrative and not certain to be discovered or commercially recoverable.
Mendell Helium's acquisition of M3 Helium, its wholly owned Kansas subsidiary, completed on 18 May, bringing in the Rost wells, Fort Dodge leases, a recompletion joint venture with Ritchie Exploration at Schneweis Ventures 13A, and interests in five Hugoton field wells tied into the Jayhawk gas processing plant.