Helium company’s hopes rise along the Iron Range, with plans for more drilling

A helium exploration company is expanding its search for the buoyant gas in northern Minnesota, sinking 10 new wells to determine if there’s enough to bottle and sell.

Thomas Abraham-James, the CEO of Pulsar Helium, said the company has found helium concentrations as high as 14% in its two wells southeast of Babbitt. Usually, helium is a byproduct of natural gas extraction, making up 1% or less of what comes out of the ground. In this case, the inert gas is hiding in the seams of fractured rocks underground.

The gases linger between roughly 3,000 and 6,000 feet deep, according to a presentation the company has compiled for investors. Pulsar will start drilling new wells at the end of September.

Early results show the helium floats to the surface naturally, and wouldn’t require fracking to extract it, Abraham-James said. “The question we now need to answer is, ‘What is the size of the prize?’ ” he added.

In 2011, a different company that was digging for platinum and palladium near Babbitt got a surprise when gas came “absolutely screaming out of the hole,” according to a member of that exploration team.

That gas was helium, an artifact of decaying radioactive elements deep underground. Helium isn’t just used in balloons — it can be used to help cool machinery, etch supercomputer chips and flush fuel from rockets. To sell it, the gas would have to be cooled and liquefied, Abraham-James said.

He did not reveal the locations of the new drill sites, but he said they will be focused in the Bald Eagle Intrusion, a funnel-shaped geologic formation. It stretches from Bald Eagle Lake in Superior National Forest some 17 miles southwest, across Voyageurs Highway to the Sand Lake Peatland Scientific and Natural Area.

Companies that explore for copper and nickel in areas with state-owned mineral rights have to file a plan with the Department of Natural Resources. DNR spokeswoman Gail Nosek wrote in an email that the company did not have to submit an exploration plan to the state because it is drilling entirely in areas with private mineral rights.

The company must notify the DNR and the Minnesota Department of Health, which regulates wells, before drilling. Nosek said Pulsar sent in a notification earlier this month.

Extracting helium is more similar to a natural gas well than the large, open-pit iron mines that dot northeastern Minnesota.

Pulsar will use data it collects to determine how big a facility it might build, and how long it could operate. That should become clear by midway through next year, Abraham-James said. After that, he guessed that building and permitting could take another 12 to 18 months.

Separately, the U.S. Forest Service is considering whether to grant special permits to allow Pulsar to do seismic testing this winter on Superior National Forest land near the current drill sites, north of Sand Lake SNA. A comment period on those permits is open until Sept. 29, and the testing would help create a 3D underground map of more than 24,000 acres, according to project documents.

No helium can be captured and sold until those rules are in place. Nosek said the DNR is required to publish draft rules by May 22, 2026, after which the public will have a chance to comment.

Pulsar announced last month that it acquired a hydrogen exploration company. With it, the helium explorers will gain rights to the underground gases on 59,000 acres of land in St. Louis and Itasca counties, up and down the Iron Range.