Episode summary
Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons | Odd Lots
Odd Lots
· · Hosts: Tracy Alloway, Joe Weisenthal · Guests: Nicholas Snyder
Summary
Helium is a small but strategically important industrial commodity, and Nicholas Snyder argues its importance goes far beyond balloons. He says the biggest demand source is semiconductor manufacturing, with other major uses in rocket launches, leak detection, fiber optics, MRI and NMR systems, and emerging applications in quantum computing and nuclear fusion. Its value comes from a mix of unique properties: the lowest boiling point in nature, strong heat-transfer characteristics, and chemical inertness.
Snyder says most helium is recovered as a byproduct of natural-gas production, but only in a few places with the right geology and processing infrastructure. He highlights Qatar as the largest single source, along with fields in Algeria, Siberia, the U.S. mid-continent, and a small amount in Kazakhstan. Because helium is perishable in liquid form and specialized containers are scarce, supply disruptions can take weeks or longer to work through the market.
He also argues the U.S. made a mistake by selling down its strategic helium reserve. In his view, the forced sales depressed prices, discouraged exploration, and left the market more exposed just as demand from advanced industry kept rising. North American Helium is trying to build a non-hydrocarbon supply base in Western Canada, expand production, and add its own liquefaction capacity.
Key takeaways
- Nicholas Snyder says semiconductor manufacturing is now the biggest helium demand source, and new leading-edge chips can use about 10 times more helium per chip than older technologies.
- Snyder says Qatar accounts for north of 30% of world helium supply, so the war-related disruption there creates a delayed but serious shortage.
- He argues the U.S. helium reserve was a bad long-term policy choice because selling it off depressed prices and discouraged private exploration.
- Snyder says helium logistics are a bottleneck because the gas is shipped as a perishable liquid in a limited number of specialized containers.
- North American Helium plans to raise production by 40% later this year and build a Canadian liquefaction facility to serve higher-purity customers.
Notable quotes
“the biggest demand source, which you've probably seen in the news a little bit, because of the events in Iran, is manufacturing semiconductors”
“So what makes it so useful is it's got 3 or 4 things going for it that are completely unique”
“Helium itself is not radioactive. And divers can breathe it as long as there's oxygen in there as well”
“There's actually literally nothing on the terminal about helium pricing”
“it's like a tsunami where the water has already gone out, but we're all still on the beach and the wave hasn't hit yet”
How the episode opens
Now, here's something I've learned over I have learned over the years, which is that any time we are talking about new commodities, it's often like harder to find anything resembling spot prices at all, including a lot of the rare earths and stuff. There's actually literally nothing on the terminal about helium pricing. And I, tell us about why that is Yeah.
So it's a pretty unique market. I mean, there used to be more markets like this, but, companies like Bloomberg and many others have helped to make things a lot more efficient. You know, in general, the price at the price to the end user, it's considered to be about a 6,000,000,000 cubic foot per year market and worth about $6 billion a year.
So that implies about $1,000 per MCF to the end user. And, you know, that's an MCF is 1000 cubic feet. That's the standard denomination that they use in natural gas.
Okay. You know, so that implies that it's a dollar for one cubic foot. And since you insisted on bringing a helium balloon into the studio, I would fact check you and say, what did you pay for that?
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal. And I'm Tracy Alloway.
Tracy, one of the things that I've been learning over the last few weeks that a lot more than oil comes, you know, for real, like, say, you know, if there's war breaking out in the Middle East, you just think about oil, right? And then and that's probably actually where my mind would typically stop what's the price of oil? And we all are watching the price of oil.
But there are a lot of other things that are, sourced from the region that are of critical importance.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- helium shortage
- industrial helium demand
- semiconductor lithography
- helium supply chain
- us strategic helium reserve
Companies and tickers mentioned
- North American Helium
Watch the episode
Watch “Now There's a Helium Shortage and It Affects More Than Balloons | Odd Lots” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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