Renergen starts helium production, again

Renergen’s new owner, ASP Isotopes, has announced that the company has commenced commissioning of its liquid helium plant in South Africa.

This may be confusing for investors who have followed the company for some time, as Renergen itself announced that it had begun commercial liquid helium sales in March 2025.

The production and sale of its liquid helium has been a point of contention at Renergen for years, as the company has repeatedly missed its own deadlines and released contradictory statements.

Renergen was acquired by US-based ASP Isotopes in May 2025. Renergen’s main asset is its Virginia Gas Project, through which the company produces liquid natural gas (LNG) and, now, liquid helium.

On Thursday, 20 August, ASP Isotopes, which has a secondary listing on the JSE, announced that Renergen has commenced the commissioning of a liquid helium plant in South Africa.

“Tetra4, a subsidiary of Renergen and the developer of the Virginia Gas Project, has started the commissioning phase of the Phase 1 Liquid Helium plant post engineering optimisation,” ASP Isotopes said.

“The company remains on track to deliver liquid helium to customers during September and ramp production to nameplate capacity during 2H.”

“Following the successful start-up of Phase 1, the company expects to advance to Phase 2 during 2H 2026. The Company is currently exploring ways to accelerate the revenues and cash flows from Phase 2.”

For investors who have kept up with Renergen since it listed on the JSE in 2015, this statement may be confusing.

Renergen previously told investors that it would generate 52 tonnes of LNG and 400 kg of helium per day from phase 1 of its Virginia Gas Project.

However, this did not materialise, and the company moved on to phase 2 in March 2020.

While it continued producing LNG, liquid helium production remained elusive, with Renergen citing various hindrances, including a leaking cold box and the need for OEM approval.

In the meantime, the company was not making money. It has never posted a profit and, in its 2025 financial year, reported its worst loss on record at R235.8 million – 114% more than in 2024.

Renergen’s helium claims

This is not the first time Renergen has claimed to have started commercial helium production.

In August 2024, Renergen announced that its liquid helium production training is now fully operational and that it plans to start selling helium to customers.

The company said it is accumulating liquid helium inventory for sale to its customers, whose Iso-container is scheduled to arrive later that month for filling.

That same month, then-Renergen CEO Stefano Marani told Zunaid Suleman from Benzinga All Access that the company reached a significant milestone in helium production.

“We have now finally managed to get the helium module on. We are producing liquid helium and putting it into our customers’ tanks,” he said.

Marani added that he was “really proud to say that we are deriving revenue from the helium as well”.

However, Renergen’s reviewed interim consolidated financial statements for the six months ended 31 August 2024 contradicted these claims. 

The company said one of its key priorities is “delivering the first container of liquid helium to our customer”, indicating that Renergen has not delivered any helium to customers.

The results also stated that Renergen incurred higher operating costs arising from the commissioning of the helium system, “while not generating associated revenue”.

A few months later, in March 2025, Renergen made another announcement: it had begun commercial liquid helium sales.

Renergen said the long-awaited event of filling a helium container with liquid has now taken place. 

“It is being collected by the customer today,” the company said. It did not specify who the customer is.

In its results for the six months through August 2025, Renergen confirmed that it had delivered 52.6 kg of liquid helium in March 2025. 

However, following this delivery, Renergen said liquid helium production was strategically halted “until feed-gas volumes reach the minimum threshold to financially justify continued operation of the helium plant”.

“As such, H1 2026 liquid helium production was minimal at 52.6 kilograms,” The company said. 

“We are now focused on completing the Phase 1C drilling and exploration program, concurrently with further optimisation to ensure efficient production and filling of ISO-Containers once nameplate capacity is achieved.”

ASP Isotopes says Renergen is producing liquid helium

It is unclear whether liquid helium production had restarted after this, as ASP Isotopes announced its intention to buy Renergen two months later, in May 2025.

The acquisition was completed in January 2026, and ASP Isotopes now releases all information related to Renergen.

In the announcement released on 20 August 2026, ASP Isotopes said Renergen’s Virginia Gas Project has entered the commissioning phase of the company’s liquid helium plant.

“The company continues to expect to ship the first commercial helium to customers during September,” it said.

“This is a major milestone for the company and concludes almost a decade of work by Renergen and its employees,” ASP Isotopes CEO Paul Mann said. 

“Bringing a new source of liquid helium into production is a rare achievement anywhere in the world.”

“We are proud to soon add a new source to the market at a time when our customers are actively seeking new suppliers of this critical material.”

ASP Isotopes said it is in active discussions with potential customers regarding the offtake of LNG and liquid helium from both Phase 1 and Phase 2. 

Currently, it has signed take-or-pay contracts with customers for approximately 75% of Phase 1 LNG and 15% of Phase 1 liquid helium. 

“With Phase 1 now commissioning, our focus turns to completion of commissioning and ramping production to nameplate capacity and advancing Phase 2,” it said.

This will see ASP Isotopes pursue $750 million (R12.11 billion) of senior debt funding from the US International Development Finance Corporation and Standard Bank.