Iran war halts Qatar helium output, threatening global tech supply
chains
[March 21, 2026] By
KELVIN CHAN
LONDON (AP) — Iran's attack this week on Qatar's natural gas export
facility threatens to disrupt not just world energy markets but also
global technology supply chains because the helium it produces is
crucial for a range of advanced industries.
Best known as the gas that makes party balloons float, helium is also a
key input in chipmaking, space rockets and medical imaging.
Qatar supplies a third of the world's helium, according to the U.S.
Geological Survey, but the nation had to halt production shortly after
the war erupted three weeks ago. The latest Iranian strikes against the
region's energy producing infrastructure have added to supply worries,
with Qatar's state-owned gas company saying it would crimp helium
exports by 14%.
Here's a deeper look at helium's industrial role:
Qatar's role in helium supply
Helium is a byproduct of natural gas production, when it's separated out
by cryogenic distillation. Qatar, which sits on the world's biggest
single natural gas field, produces about 30% of global helium supply,
according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Qatar's helium is produced at its Ras Laffan facility, the world’s
largest liquefied natural gas plant. But state-owned energy company
QatarGas halted production of LNG and “associated products” on March 2
because of Iran's drone attacks and two days later declared force
majeure, meaning it’s unable to supply contracted customers due to
circumstances beyond its control.
After Ras Laffan was hit again by more Iranian strikes on Wednesday and
Thursday, QatarGas reported “extensive” damage that will take years to
repair and cut annual helium exports by 14%.
“It makes the story worse,” said Phil Kornbluth, president of Kornbluth
Helium Consulting. “Your best case scenario would be you’re back
producing some helium in six weeks or something like that. As it looks
right now, that’s highly unlikely.”
Helium prices are on the rise
Spot prices for helium have doubled since the crisis erupted and will
probably rise further, Kornbluth said.
But spot trading only accounts for about 2% of the total market in
normal times, he said. Helium is a thinly traded commodity and is mostly
sold through long-term contracts.
Still, contract prices “could go up a lot,” Kornbluth said. “There’s
lots of room for price increase if this is an extended outage.”
Kornbluth said the shortage hasn’t hit yet, because helium containers
that would have been filled when the conflict erupted at the start of
March would have still taken several weeks to arrive in Asia.
“Nobody’s run out of helium yet. But it’s a few weeks out when the
shortage really hits.”
It's not just party balloons
Helium is essential for manufacturing semiconductors, including the
cutting-edge chips used for artificial intelligence models produced in
Asian fabrication plants.
It’s great at conducting or transferring heat, making it ideal for rapid
cooling.
Chipmakers use it to cool wafers — the discs of silicon printed with
tiny electronic circuits. Helium is used during the etching process,
when material that's been deposited on a wafer is scraped away to form
transistor structures, said Jacob Feldgoise, an analyst at Georgetown
University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
During the etching process, “you really want to maintain a constant
temperature over the wafer. And in order to do that, you need to be able
to draw heat away from the wafer that’s being processed,” said Feldgoise.
“Helium is an excellent thermal conductor. And so chip fabs will blow
helium over the back of the wafer in order to speed heat removal and
keep heat removal consistent.”
Under current semiconductor manufacturing processes, there’s no viable
replacement for helium to cool wafers, said Jong-hwan Lee, a professor
of semiconductor devices at South Korea’s Sangmyung University.
The medical industry uses helium to cool superconducting magnets
powering magnetic resonance imaging machines.
And the space industry uses helium to purge rocket fuel tanks, a demand
that is expected to grow because of more frequent launches by companies
like SpaceX and Blue Origin.
[to top of second column] |
This April 4, 2009, file photo, shows a gas production facility at
Ras Laffan, Qatar. (AP Photos/Maneesh Bakshi, File)
 A complicated supply chain
situation
Helium's atomic properties make it tricky to store and transport.
In gas form, helium's tiny molecules can easily escape containers by
leaking through even the smallest of gaps.
Helium is typically chilled by Qatar's gas company into liquid form
and stored in insulated containers for transport through the Strait
of Hormuz. The specialized containers can store helium for 35 to 48
days. Any longer and they start warming up, letting the helium
transform into gas that escapes through pressure release valves.
About 200 of these containers are stuck in the Middle East,
Kornbluth said. They cost about $1 million each, so there aren't a
lot of extra ones sitting around elsewhere.
“It’s going to take a fair amount of time to get these containers
out of Qatar and to get them somewhere else where they might be able
to be filled with helium,” he said.
“So this initial period when you lose Qatar supply and have to rejig
the supply chain and reposition containers, that’s going to be the
worst part of the shortage most likely.”
Other major suppliers of helium
There only are a handful of countries that produce helium.
The United States is the biggest producer, accounting for 81 million
cubic meters last year. Qatar, Algeria and Russia are the other
major producers, but Russian supplies are banned under Under States
and European Union sanctions.
USGS estimates the United States has 8.5 billion cubic meters of
recoverable helium in geologic reservoirs, while the rest of the
world has 31.3 billion cubic meters.
Asian chipmakers on edge
The war highlights the sprawling global supply chains that underpin
South Korea’s semiconductor industry, which has seen a surge in
global demand for its chips amid the AI boom.
Fitch Ratings said in a report this week that the country — home to
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the world’s largest memory chip
makers — is particularly vulnerable to supply shortages because it
imports about 65% of its helium from Qatar.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix likely have several months of
inventory, but it's crucial that they accelerate efforts to secure
alternative sources, Lee said, as the war could drag on and
potentially disrupt supplies of more materials beyond helium.
Helium is among 14 semiconductor supply chain materials the Seoul
government has flagged for monitoring due to their heavy
vulnerability to the war.
“Even disruptions affecting just a handful of materials could
destabilize the entire semiconductor manufacturing process as each
stage of production depends on the previous one,” Lee said.
Still, a full-blown helium crisis is unlikely, experts said. In the
event of a shortage, Kornbluth said the helium industry allocates
supplies based on importance so critical industries such as
chipmaking and medical would be at the front of the line.
And because helium is a small part of the overall production cost of
a semiconductor, it's likely that chip fabs “would be willing to pay
a higher price” to secure supplies, Feldgoise said.
Samsung and SK Hynix declined to respond to questions about
inventory or plans to diversify supplies. The Korea Semiconductor
Industry Association said short-term supplies are sufficient and
companies have been diversifying their supply routes.
Chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company also
said it does not “anticipate any significant impact at this time"
but will continue monitoring the situation.
___
AP writers Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, Chan Ho-him in Hong
Kong and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia contributed.
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