Subscribe for Investment Insights. Stay Ahead.
Investment market and industry insights delivered to you in real-time.
Global demand for helium is forecast to increase from 176million m3 to 322 million m3 — almost double — by 2035.
A new report by IDTechEx, expects the growth to come from the semiconductor industry, driven by growth in artificial intelligence and data centers, due to its cooling and inert properties.
Helium may be most commonly known for filling party balloons, but the gas is essential across significant growth industries, particularly as its use as a super coolant, including:
- medical, eg to cool the superconducting magnets in MRI scanners
- military equipment, eg air-to-air missile guidance systems
- high-tech manufacturing, eg fibre optic cables
- space rockets, eg liquid fuel rockets to separate hot gases and ultra-cold liquid fuel during lift-off
- semiconductors and scientific research, eg as a “superfluid” in quantum computing
The vast majority of the world’s helium production comes from natural gas wells in the US, with 2.6 billion cubic feet in 2022, and QatarGas, with 2.1 billion cubic feet. Much of the rest comes from Sonatrach in Algeria, Russia, Australia and Canada.
The first-ever estimate on recoverable helium reserves by the US Geological Survey found that the US has an estimated 306 billion cubic feet of helium, or about 150 years of supply at 2020 US production levels. Reserves outside of the US are estimated at 1.13 trillion cubic feet.
See our analysis on the helium market:
Subscribe for Investment Insights. Stay Ahead.
Investment market and industry insights delivered to you in real-time.