Helium hitch: Why US-Israel war on Iran could cause MRI scan delays

The United States-Israel war on Iran, and Tehran’s response, have disrupted about one-third of global supplies of helium, which is critical for medical uses such as MRI scans, as well as in high-tech industries such as the semiconductor sector.

This is largely due to shipping restrictions and the halt of production by a chief helium producer, Qatar.

How much helium is produced in the Gulf?

In 2025, Qatar produced about 63 million cubic metres of helium, constituting a third of the roughly 190 million cubic metres of helium produced globally, according to the US Geological Survey.

While other Gulf countries are not chief producers of helium, they are critical to the global supply chain because exports from Qatar and elsewhere depend on shipping lanes and chokepoints in their coastal waters, especially the Strait of Hormuz.

On March 2, Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced that the strait was “closed” and if any vessels tried to cross it, the IRGC and the navy would “set those ships ablaze”. Since then, shipping through the strait has been significantly reduced.

Iranian officials have insisted that the strait is not completely closed – except to ships belonging to the US, Israel and those who collaborate with them – but have also laid down new ground rules: Any vessel must secure Tehran’s approval to transit through the narrow waterway. As a result, traffic through the strait has ground almost to a halt, barring a few Indian, Pakistani and Chinese ships.

QatarEnergy, the world’s largest LNG producer whose plants also generate liquid helium, said annual exports of the cooling element would drop by 14 percent each year.

How is it transported to buyers?

A very low-density gas, helium takes up a lot of space in gas form. Hence, it is typically cooled to liquid form and stored in specialised cryogenic containers. This saves space and is more cost-effective.

Helium typically has to be transported within 45 days of being liquified, because even well‑insulated tanks gradually warm up, causing the helium to boil off, build pressure and revert to gas that escapes containers and into the atmosphere.

In Qatar, these helium containers are shipped to buyers in containers by sea.

Virtually all of Qatar’s exported helium normally leaves the country by ship through the Strait of Hormuz, because Qatar’s production is on the Gulf and there is no alternative maritime outlet.

Why has helium production been disrupted in the Gulf?

Helium is extracted as a by-product during the production of LNG. Hence, any disruptions to the production of LNG inadvertently cut helium supply.

LNG production has been affected in Qatar due to attacks on its energy infrastructure.

Qatar’s state-run energy firm QatarEnergy announced on March 2 that it had halted LNG production following Iranian attacks on its operational facilities in Ras Laffan and Mesaieed in Qatar. Iranian officials publicly denied targeting QatarEnergy.

Last week, Iranian state media reported that natural gas facilities associated with the South Pars gasfield had been attacked.

Hours later, Iranian missiles struck an LNG facility at Ras Laffan Industrial City, which processes approximately 20 percent of the global supplies of LNG, in northern Qatar.

The attack caused three fires and wiped out about ⁠17 percent of Qatar’s LNG export capacity, causing an estimated $20bn in lost annual revenue for the next five years, QatarEnergy’s CEO, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, told the Reuters news agency.

Repairs will sideline 12.8 million tonnes of LNG production per year for three to five years, he said.

That decline in LNG production is why QatarEnergy has announced a 14 percent cut in exports of liquid helium.

Which countries depend the most on helium supplies from the Gulf?

South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China are the biggest consumers of helium from Qatar.

Most supply is sold through long-term contracts rather than a transparent spot market, meaning price changes may not be felt immediately.

But supplies will still tighten, as exports from Qatar drop.

Aleksandr Romanenko, CEO of market research firm IndexBox, told Reuters that a 30-day disruption could lift delivered spot helium prices by 10 percent to 20 percent, while a 60-to-90-day outage could push prices higher by 25 percent to 50 percent, particularly for buyers without long-term supply contracts.

Last week, South Korea’s governing party lawmaker Kim Young-bae warned the US-Israel war on Iran could disrupt supplies of key semiconductor manufacturing materials, giving helium as one example.

Why is helium so important?

No other element can be cooled to temperatures as low as helium, down to just a fraction below absolute zero or 0 Kelvin, the lowest temperature possible.

That quality makes helium unique for a range of purposes in high-tech industries. It remains in liquid form at extremely low temperatures and so serves as a warning system against leaks.

Helium is also chemically inert – it does not react with other chemicals. That makes it perfect as a cooling agent because it does not contaminate chips or other materials with which it comes in contact.

These qualities also make it ideal for cooling superconducting magnets, reducing their electrical resistance to near zero.

What is it used for?

These properties mean that liquid helium has long been an essential component in running Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines.

MRI machines use superconducting magnets that heat up and need to be cooled. Helium cooling allows the magnets to generate magnetic fields powerful enough to create clear images of the inside of the human body.

About a quarter of the helium used worldwide is used for the cooling of superconducting magnets, and demand is on the rise, according to the German engineering group Siemens.

Additionally, helium is used in the production of semiconductor chips. Semiconductors are special materials, usually silicon-based, used to make the chips that power almost all modern electronics, from smartphones and cars to data centres and military systems.

Helium is also used to fill party balloons, weather balloons, and some airships because it’s lighter than air and nonflammable.

What will happen if countries cannot get helium?

Helium does not have an artificial substitute. Hence, a helium shortage would create a gap in technological advancement.

But this isn’t a new threat.

The crisis started by the war on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is the fifth occasion since 2006 when the world has grappled with a helium supply shortage.

The medical industry, in particular, has been attempting to adapt. In 2002, Chinese researchers announced that they had developed a new technology that could allow for helium-free MRI scanners, using a new, super-cold material.

Separately, researchers have developed MRI machines that can recycle helium, thereby reducing their consumption of it.

Still, for now, most MRI machines around the world rely on liquid helium.

Who else produces helium, and can they increase production easily?

The US is the largest producer of helium worldwide, producing 81 million cubic metres – more than 40 percent of global supplies.

Texas-headquartered Exxon Mobil is the largest helium producer outside Qatar, while Canada-based North American Helium and smaller developers such as Helix Exploration and Blue Star Helium could see stronger demand, Anish Kapadia, CEO of market research firm AKAP Energy, told Reuters.

But despite this production, North American consumers also depend on Gulf helium.

Airgas, a subsidiary of French industrial gases group Air Liquide that is among the largest distributors of helium in the US, declared force majeure last week, announcing that it was cutting its shipments of the gas by half.

Air Liquide, its parent company, announced last week that it was planning to reallocate its helium supply chain to access the gas from other regions. The announcement was made during the opening of a new advanced materials factory in Taichung, Taiwan. Air Liquide said it relied on multiple sources in different continents and on its storage cavern in Europe.