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Show Brisii New' Local Isidysfry Utah's first commercial production of helium may result re-sult from a contract signed Monday by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall, Senator Wallace F. Bennett, R-Utah, told The Times-Independent late that afternoon. The contract permits an oil and gas operator, Arlyne Lansdale, of Garden Grove, Calif., to extract helium from natural gas underlying Federal Fed-eral lands in Grand county in East Central Utah near the Colorado border. Under the contract, . Mrs. Lansdale would pay the Fed-' eral government $2 per thousand thou-sand cubic feet for any helium hel-ium produced, with a minimum mini-mum payment of $1,000 per month after start-up of her proposed extraction plant. The contract requires the plant go on stream within four years and that it will comply with all Federal, State and local regulations concerning fire, safety and pollution. "The Government's helium revenue would be in addition to regular payments for any pipeline gas or petroleum obtained from the lands, which total about 5,600 acres and for which the oil and gas rights have been leased to Mrs. Lansdale for several years," Senator Bennett said. The Lansdale lease includes in-cludes Harley Dome, gas-bearing gas-bearing sandstone formation less than 1,000 feet below the surface. Gas in this formation con- tains about 7 per cent helium hel-ium and 80 per cent nitrogen with the balance a mixture of hydrocarbon compounds. The amount of recoverable helium has been estimated roughly at about 100 million cubic feet. This is about six weeks' supply at current rates of consumption, according accor-ding to the Department's Bureau of Mines. Under terms of leases on public lands, all constituents of natural gas except helium belong to the lessee, on payment pay-ment of royalty. In providing for sale of the contained helium hel-ium to the lessee, the new . contract assures conserva tion of the helium for bene- ficial usg Sen. Bennett said. j The purchaser has indicated an interest in extracting and ; selling nitrogen as well as , helum, it was noted. Both inert gases may be separated separat-ed from the hydrocarbon constituents of natural gas by the same kind of equipment equip-ment compressors, expanders expan-ders ' ,and heat exchangers ; which lower the tempera- , j ture of the mixture to about 260 degrees below zero, Fah- renheit, until the hydrocar- , bon gases become liquid and 1 can be drained away. |