China temporarily bans helium exports

The U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran has disrupted global helium supplies, affecting industries worldwide, particularly the semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) sectors.

• The shortage has impacted China’s AI industry, which increasingly depends on domestically produced semiconductor chips for training and deploying AI models.
• Qatar, which accounts for around one-third of global helium production and has supplied more than half of China’s helium imports in recent years, experienced export disruptions following regional tensions and Iranian attacks.
• The United States remains the world’s largest producer of helium, contributing about 42% of global production (approximately 81 million cubic metres annually).
• India currently has no commercial helium production and depends entirely on imports to meet domestic demand.

About Helium

• Helium (He) is a colourless, odourless, non-toxic, inert, and non-flammable noble gas.
• It is not manufactured artificially on a commercial scale because it is a naturally occurring chemical element, not a compound.
• Helium is primarily obtained as a by-product of natural gas extraction from gas fields containing unusually high helium concentrations.
• It is formed over millions of years through the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium in the Earth’s crust, where helium accumulates in underground natural gas reservoirs.
• During processing, helium is separated from methane and other gases using cryogenic distillation.

Applications of Helium

• Helium is indispensable in the semiconductor manufacturing industry because of its exceptional cooling properties and chemical inertness.
• In chip fabrication, helium is used for wafer cooling, plasma etching, Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD), Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), lithography support, leak detection in high-precision manufacturing equipment.
• Helium is also widely used to cool superconducting magnets in MRI scanners, NMR spectrometers, particle accelerators, and other advanced scientific instruments.
• As helium has very limited substitutes in many high-technology applications, supply disruptions can significantly affect healthcare, semiconductor manufacturing, space research, and AI-related industries worldwide.

Source: TH & Others

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