Disseminated on Behalf of: Altura Energy Corp.
- Iranian strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex have knocked roughly one-third of global helium supply offline, doubling prices and forcing buyers to scramble for North American alternatives.
- Altura Energy is one of the few junior public companies already producing helium, with concentrations of 5–8% at its Pinta-South project, five to eight times the industry norm.
- Granite Point Research has assigned Altura a C$0.60 target price, implying roughly 87.5% upside, with significantly more leverage if elevated helium prices hold.
Helium does not behave like other commodities. It cannot be synthesized, has no substitutes, and is found in recoverable quantities in only a handful of places on Earth. Four countries account for more than 93% of the global supply. There is no futures market and no real price discovery. Pricing happens in long-term contracts behind closed doors.
That fragility has now become a crisis. Iranian strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial complex have damaged the liquefied natural gas facilities that produce roughly one-third of the world’s helium, with early estimates pointing to three to five years for full repairs. Prices have doubled in a matter of months. Asian chipmakers are racing to diversify supply, and end users across medical imaging and aerospace are watching inventories tighten.
That is where Altura Energy (TSXV: ALTU | OTCQB: ALTUF | FSE: Y020) now finds itself.
The Arizona-focused producer is one of a small group of junior public companies with actual helium flowing today. Its flagship Pinta-South project sits in the Holbrook Basin, a region known for unusually rich helium concentrations and shallow, low-cost wells. A new farm-in at Navajo Springs adds 2,560 acres of district-scale running room. A second exploration target at Puerco Ridge offers the kind of upside that could redefine the company entirely if early geology holds.
The setup is simple. Demand is structural. Supply just collapsed. And Altura is one of the few names sitting on producing wells with the chemistry and infrastructure to scale.
We have green helium. Our carrying gas is nitrogen, which essentially means we just have to cool the nitrogen enough to separate it from the helium gas and we can send it right to sales.
— Ashley Lastinger, CEO, Altura Energy Corp.
A different kind of helium company
Most of the world’s helium is an accident. It comes out of the ground alongside natural gas, usually at concentrations below 1%, so diluted that producers often don’t know it’s there. The economics of those wells depend on gas prices, not helium prices.
Altura works differently. At Pinta-South, the carrier gas is nitrogen rather than hydrocarbons, which means the project produces no greenhouse emissions and the company’s revenue is tied directly to helium itself.
The grade is what matters most. Pinta-South wells produce helium at concentrations of 5 to 8%, roughly five to eight times the global average.
“A normal oil and natural gas producer’s economics are based on the natural gas or the oil price. Altura is not,” Lastinger said. “Our revenue stream is strictly the helium. Normally you would see less than 1% of the stream as helium. Half the time you don’t even know if it’s there. For us, it’s 5 to 8% of the formations we’re currently interested in.”
That concentration difference cascades through the economics. A new well at Pinta-South costs roughly US$400,000 fully drilled and tied into the pipeline. Management runs its economics at a conservative US$200 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf), well below current contract pricing, and still projects roughly a one-year payback.
“Anything on top of that from a price per Mcf is just the cherry on top,” Lastinger said.
Production, not promise
The distinction that matters most for investors is that Altura is already producing. Many junior helium names in Canada and the United States are still drilling, testing, or chasing permits. Altura is selling molecules.
The company holds a 20% working interest in two non-operated producing wells. It is now finishing pipeline work at Saddle Horse Draw and plans to bring previously recompleted wells back online, with a rig scheduled for June to work over four additional wells. By the end of summer, Altura expects six operated producers online alongside the two non-operated wells.
Offtake is already locked in. Altura has a contracted offtake agreement with Linde, the global industrial gas leader, structured on the average sale price over a rolling 30-day period.
“We don’t have a bottom, but we also don’t have a top,” Lastinger said. “If the average is $600 or $1,200, that’s the price we’re going to get.”
In a market where Granite Point Research notes helium prices could exceed US$2,000/Mcf if global disruptions persist, that uncapped exposure is the single most leveraged piece of the Altura story.
Navajo Springs and Puerco Ridge
Beyond near-term cash flow, two expansion projects define the next 18 months.
The first is Navajo Springs, where Altura secured a farm-in agreement in April 2026 covering 2,560 acres with a 100% working interest. The project sits in the northern section of the Pinto field, with multiple potential formations and surface use discussions underway with the Navajo Nation. New well drilling is expected to begin in early 2027 once permitting and archaeological work conclude.
The second is Puerco Ridge, in the southern portion of the land package. Altura is preparing to shoot 2D seismic in the third and fourth quarters of 2026 to size up a structure that, in management’s view, could swing from modest to transformational.
“It can be tiny, but it could be huge. We just have to see,” Lastinger said. “We know based on the well data that there are at least three formations in this area. If we find a significant structure at Puerco Ridge, we’re obviously going to want to drill it as well.”
Crucially, Altura already has access to existing processing infrastructure through its operating partner Ranger — a structural advantage many junior helium companies lack. Proven wells without a path to market are common in the sector. Altura’s combination of producing assets, contracted offtake, and processing access is not.
What the analysts are seeing
The thesis has begun to attract third-party attention. Granite Point Research, in an April 2026 FOCUS report by oil and gas analyst John Stephenson, P.Eng., CFA, identified Altura as one of a small group of junior public companies with the most leverage to rising helium prices.
Stephenson’s net asset value analysis assigns Altura a target price of C$0.60, roughly 87.5% above where shares trade today. The work also models meaningful additional upside if helium prices sustain above US$500/Mcf, with NAV per share scaling materially as concentrations and pricing rise.
For retail investors, the asymmetry is the point. Altura is small, under C$25 million in market capitalization. It is already producing at well economics that pay back within roughly a year at conservative price assumptions. And its leverage to a structurally undersupplied commodity now sits in a tightening macro environment with no easy fix on the supply side.
Why now
Helium supply shocks are not new. This is the fifth major crunch since 2006. But the combination of Qatar’s offline capacity, the strategic privatization of the U.S. Federal Helium Reserve in 2024, and surging demand from semiconductors, AI infrastructure, MRI fleets, and aerospace has created a setup North American producers have not faced before.
“You can’t just easily add capacity to LNG facilities,” Lastinger said. “In North America, you can’t just add equipment to Houston and down south into the Gulf of Mexico because the lead time is way too high. Demand hasn’t stopped. The AI boom is making the need for semiconductors very, very large. Developing nations are putting in MRI machines. Demand isn’t going anywhere, but a third of the supply has been taken out.”
Altura’s response over the next six months is straightforward: bring existing wells back online, complete Navajo Springs prep work, shoot seismic at Puerco Ridge, and let the macro do the rest.
In a commodity defined by scarcity, geography, and chemistry, junior producers with grade, infrastructure, and offtake rarely sit overlooked for long.
About Altura Energy Corp.
Altura Energy (TSXV: ALTU | OTCQB: ALTUF | FSE: Y020) is a helium exploration, production, and storage company focused on the Holbrook Basin of northwestern Arizona. The company’s flagship Pinta-South project produces green helium with concentrations of 5 to 8%, supported by contracted offtake with Linde and access to existing processing infrastructure. Altura’s management team and board, led by CEO Ashley Lastinger and Executive Chairman Robert Johnston, bring decades of senior oil and gas experience from Chevron, Apache Corporation, and Atalaya Resources.
To learn more about Altura Energy, visit their website here.
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