Helium Is Rare On Earth And Now The Global Supply Is In Trouble, Threatening Industries From Medicine To Tech.

The ongoing crisis in the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz is disrupting more than just the supply of oil – it’s also restricting the transport of helium. This natural gas plays a vital role in many industries, including electronics manufacturing and medicine, forcing companies to hunt for alternative sources.

Why is helium so important? Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe, but it is actually pretty rare on our planet. It is produced in the Earth’s crust where it is forms from the radioactive decay of elements such as uranium and thorium. Here it slowly accumulates in natural deposits, but when it is released, it escapes into the atmosphere and eventually heads off into space.

This is because helium is much lighter than other gases, such as nitrogen and oxygen. As such, Earth’s gravity has a harder time keeping hold of it. At the same time, it is a noble gas, meaning it doesn’t form compounds, which stops it from getting locked into minerals or molecules like other elements.

Despite its scarcity, helium is actually one of the most important, albeit often overlooked, elements in the modern world. Liquid helium has the unique ability of being able to reach ultra-cold temperatures that approach absolute zero (-273.15°C). This makes it extremely useful for scientific research into superconductivity and has also underpinned many of its applications.

For instance, helium is used as a coolant in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines. These scanners are used to diagnose a range of medical conditions through high-resolution, three-dimensional imaging of the body. They achieve this through superconducting magnets which allow electricity to flow with effectively no resistance, creating an extremely strong and stable magnetic field. But for this to happen, the magnets need to be kept at extremely low temperatures – around -269°C (4 K) – which is where liquid helium comes in.

Similarly, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers, which are used to identify the structure of molecules, reply on liquid helium to cool their superconducting magnets. These analytical tools are commonly used in academia and industry, and play a critical role in food, chemical, and pharmaceutical research. They are used to confirm a product’s composition and to identify impurities.

Liquid helium is also used to cool the superconducting magnets of particle accelerators, such as those found at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva.

But aside from applications that rely on superconducting materials, helium also plays a fundamental role in the production of computer chips. Here it is employed to displace oxygen and moisture in fabricating facilities. Helium is also used as a cooling agent to help prevent overheating during the etching process, where unnecessary material is removed to create the desired circuit pattens for the wafer-thin chip.

In addition, the helium is also used as a coolant in some nuclear reactors – called gas-cooled research reactors – and is also used to cool rocket fuel during take-off. Modern fiber optics rely on helium to produce a protective atmosphere, and even deep-sea divers use it as a mixture in their oxygen tanks to avoid the dangers of the bends.

The supply chain crisis Helium is clearly a significant resource for the technologies that touch on our everyday lives, but the ongoing instability in the Middle East is threatening its supply across the world. The supply of helium is extremely concentrated, with nearly a third of it being produced in Qatar (the US, Algeria, and Russia are the other major suppliers).

Back in March 2026, Iranian attacks on Qatar wiped out around 17 percent of its liquid natural gas capacity, causing it to stop its production. At the same time, Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz – a critical shipping channel – has also meant that Qatari exports of its natural gas and helium have been reduced. This loss of part of the supply of global helium may well have considerable impacts for medicine, industry, and research.

“A helium shortage is an absolute concern,” Cameron Johnson, senior partner at supply chain consultancy Tidal Wave Solutions, recently told Reuters at major industry gathering Semicon China.

For those affected, there are few immediate options to compensate, beyond simply reducing output or prioritizing critical products. But if the situation in the Middle East is not addressed soon, it could lead to production cuts that will impact the production of key products in industries such as electronics, automobiles, and smartphones.

Although the US has the world’s largest helium reserve – in Amarillo, Texas – it has sold off much of its stockpile under the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013. As Gavin D. J. Harper, a research fellow at the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements & Critical Materials, University of Birmingham, has explained in a Conversation article, “With semiconductor supply chains threatened, there is a risk that helium shortages could act as a constraint on the AI revolution.”

Harper points out that there are ways for countries to adapt to this new situation. Firstly, existing helium reserves should be kept for crucial applications. Its use should also be restricted to applications where its unique properties are essential for their performance. Although helium can easily escape into the atmosphere, it can be recycled (though it is difficult for this reason). Finally, alternative reserves should be explored (China is currently doing this), while its production can be expanded to other countries.

This could help limit the impacts of the helium shortage, but none of these measures are, as Harper says “quick fixes.”