Helium Crisis?

According to many sources, the storm clouds of yet another Helium shortage are gathering. This can be confirmed by the number of commentaries and graphs delivered by a simple Google search, including many which are conflicting in detail. My brief review shows that the price of Helium saw an increase of 300% between 2000 and 2020, with the USA as the largest producer and Russia being the 5^th largest; however, we are yet to see the full impact on the global Helium shortage as a result of Russian sanctions by the West post the Ukraine invasion. Since its inception, the US Federal Helium Reserve (FHR) has been the largest supplier to the global market. The supply of helium by the FHR has actually been higher in recent times, and perhaps the price of Helium would have been even higher otherwise. This is because it has disposed of much of its stock ahead of September 2022, when the Federal Authorities intend to auction off the remaining holdings of the FHR and return the supply chain to the private sector. This has increased uncertainty which has added to the pressure on prices. The reported present shortage of Helium supply has actually been caused by closure due to an industrial accident at the largest purification facility, and critical maintenance at another two of the world’s eight largest purification plants. A genuine drop in supply due to depletion of natural resources is also not expected for between 25 and 35 years. 

In light of this, at Butterworth Labs our minds are more focused on the requirements for using Hydrogen, instead of Helium, as a chromatography and mass spectroscopy carrier gas. There is now a large volume of information available from instrument suppliers and others regarding the long-term expected change to hydrogen and new chromatographic procedures prescribing the use of Hydrogen as carrier gas have been noted in the United States Pharmacopeia. It is possible however, that the Helium storm clouds may yet have a silver lining as the expected move to Hydrogen will deliver faster analysis and therefor shorter reporting times.