The war in Iran is about to hit the helium supply, which is critical for more than just party balloons

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Scripps News

Posted 4:36 PM, Mar 18, 2026

The cost of gasoline may be getting a lot of the attention, but blockages in the Strait of Hormuz impacts other industries too. Doctors are warning about the possibility of generic drugs being in short supply soon. Farmers are concerned about the cost of fertilizer, which in turn could change food prices.

And continued blockages in the strait could lead to shortages of helium — the gas that is used in party balloons, and a lot more besides. Phil Kornbluth analyzes the helium market. He says while much attention has been paid to oil facilities being hit by Iranians in the Gulf, many helium producing locations near those sites have also been damaged. Even if the war would end tomorrow, helium impacts are coming.

"The Party balloons are about 10% of the market. The physical shortage hasn't happened yet. The physical shortage will happen in a few weeks," Kornbluth said.

While party balloons may be the first thing you think of when you think of helium, the gas is also used in operating MRI machines at hospitals. Computer chip manufacturers need the gas too, and if there is a shortage, those sectors would be prioritized. "They cannot make computer chips without helium," Kornbluth says.

Read more: https://www.scrippsnews.com/us-news/iran-war/the-war-in-iran-is-about-to-hit-the-helium-supply-which-is-critical-for-more-than-just-party-balloons

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In our federal labs, we used Helium as a "carrier gas" in Gas Chromatography analysis, where helium is also a "noble gas" element, meaning it is stable and inert and generally non-reactive.



In the GC analyses, the helium will essentially "transport" a vaporized liquid through filter material in a coiled tube, to separate out the different substances in that liquid (and then detect and register them in a plot, once they exit the detector).

There was already a helium shortage before this whole fiasco started.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Liquid helium is vital for cryogenic superconducting magnets -- including MRI/NMR probes. There is no substitute.

The US used to maintain a Federal Helium Reserve, but Congress (more like Repugs in Congress) insisted it be sold to a private corp. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-just-sold-helium-stockpile-s-medical-world-worried-rcna134785 Medical institutions have been worried about interruption of the supply ever since -- which was part of the reason such a Reserve was established in the first place, long before the growth of MRI vastly increased the demand. That's called thinking ahead. "Free Marketeer" Repugnicans rejected that approach. Profits before people, as always !

[BumRushDaShow]

2. There has been a helium shortage for some time

including back before I retired (and that has been almost 10 years ago).

[QueerDuck]

3. Yes. I cringe at the indulgence of HUGE MASSIVE helium-filled parade balloons.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. They could always use

hydrogen!

[QueerDuck]

5. Ha! Oh, the humanity!

[area51]

10. Oh, the huge manatee.

[QueerDuck]

11. Groan!

[blue-wave]

6. So no more MRI's? Computer Chips?

There goes health care for, well.......everyone.

[Javaman]

7. because the price of oils is going up, so is the price of sulfur. (byproduct of oil production)

which is also used in abundance in the chip industry

everything that uses a chip, in as little as 3 months from now, will sky rocket in price.

[eppur_se_muova]

9. US is the world's second largest producer of sulfur, after China.

The are salt domes along the Gulf Coast (particularly in LA) where sulfur can be pumped directly out of the ground w/superheated steam pressure (Frasch process).

[Javaman]

12. that's fine for us, but especially the Asian nations that import sulfur, not so much. nt

[Dr. T]

8. I was an MR service engineer prior to retirement.

Liquid helium is used to cool wire coils in the magnet to near absolute zero degrees (roughly -460 degrees Fahrenheit). This results in superconductivity which allows the magnetic field to remain stable.

No liquid helium, no magnetic field, no detailed picture of your brain after a stroke or as cancerous tumors are growing.

[EX500rider]

13. Might be a world shortage but I doubt a severe US shortage

United States: The world's largest helium producer, utilizing vast natural gas reserves in Texas, Oklahoma, and the Rocky Mountains, often supported by federal storage.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. Don't "doubt", look at the conditions

AND what is taking much of it.

BBC had a good summary last year about what happened during the 2022 shortage and that will inform on what is starting to happen again -

The world keeps running out of helium. There is now a race to prepare for the next shortage

(snip)

The most recent severe shortage in 2022 that scuppered some of Washton's research occurred after a series of fires at a major Russian gas processing plant in the Amur region of Siberia. The war in Ukraine compounded the problem by further choking supplies at the same time a helium plant in Qatar went offline for planned maintenance. Meanwhile, the crude helium enrichment unit at the US National Helium Reserve was shut down during the summer of 2021 and again for four months at the end of January 2022. The US shutdown removed around 10% of the global production capacity of helium from the supply chain. Taken together, these incidents led to a sudden shortage and highlighted just how vulnerable the world's helium supply could be. By 2023, the industrial sale price of helium had nearly doubled from what it was five years before, reaching an all-time high.

(snip)

I also remember during my chem lab days, there were shortages of lab grade Acetone, a solvent we used quite a bit, and whatever we could find, ended up exorbitant during those shortage periods.

ETA - because of the ramp up of EV batteries, let alone billions and billions of AI chips, the need and demand for Helium, has exploded exponentially.