For sale: the entire federal helium system

The US General Services Administration is putting the federal helium system up for sale. The listing is on the GSA website’s real estate section at bit.ly/3clOGgL, though the agency is not yet accepting bids. On offer is effectively all of the US government’s assets connected to the Cliffside facility, near Amarillo, Texas. They include helium enrichment, purification, storage, and transportation equipment; 724 km of helium pipelines across Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas; 23 natural gas wells; 10 buildings; and the Bush Dome helium storage reservoir. Bush Dome, the centerpiece of the facility, is a 4,000-hectare porous rock formation, primarily dolomite, sitting beneath two layers of nonporous calcium anhydrite that act as a cap. The sale is also likely to include 65 million m³ of federally owned crude helium. The sale is the last major step in the privatization of the US helium system, a congressionally mandated move that many users blame for volatility in the helium market over the past decade.