WHY HELIUM?
Helium is increasingly critical to a technological world.
As the second most abundant element in the observable universe, after hydrogen, helium is a force of nature. It is totally unreactive, has the lowest boiling point of any gas, the highest thermal conductivity, and the smallest molecular size.
Helium’s unique properties make it irreplaceable in a wide range of high-tech applications across key growth sectors such as computing, scientific research, healthcare, space exploration and manufacturing. Global demand expected to grow from 6 Bcf per annum to 8.5-10 Bcf per annum by 2030.
Helium has lots of uses beyond party balloons.
As the coldest anything can be in the universe, liquid helium keeps superconducting magnets ice-cold in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines and particle accelerators. Its inertness makes it unsubstitutable for manufacturing semiconductors used in all electronic devices.
In addition, helium is important for creating digital devices such as smartphones, as well as the fibre-optic cables that give us the internet. Helium is also necessary to make sure NASA’s rockets work properly and is an important part of machines called magnetometers, which help the U.S. military detect enemy submarines. In aerospace, liquid helium is used as a pressure agent for cryogenic fuel tanks in space rockets.
MRI 22%
Electronics 19%
Metal fab 12%
Lifting 10%
Specialty gases 10%
Large helium users are looking for lower carbon supply.
While it is the second-most abundant element in the universe (behind hydrogen), the earth’s supply is limited. Rising demand and constrained supply are fuelling growth prospects within the global marketplace, particularly for cleaner “green helium” sourced from non-carbon environments.
The global market has experienced four major helium shortages since 2006 with Helium shortage 4.0 affecting recent years due to a combination of factors including the closure of the US federal reserve in 2019, external geopolitical forces, production faults and planned maintenance shutdowns from major producers such as Russia, the US, and Qatar.
All the big industrial companies are now looking around for alternative sources of supply due to geopolitical risk or the desire to be uncoupled from the production of oil and gas.
The supply shocks have impacted on short-term contract and spot prices, which currently range between US$650-3,500 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). Longer-term contracts have been renewed at the current level of between US$400-500/Mcf. That’s up to 50 times the price of LNG in liquid form.
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