Categories: Stock Market
Topics: Alternative Investments

Helium Shortage 4.0 & How to Profit in ‘23

For the last year and a half, the world has been in the grip of a severe helium shortage — known as Helium Shortage 4.0.

It’s the fourth time in the last two decades the world has found itself facing such a dire shortfall. 

And the sinking feeling is a lot bigger than just party balloons!

Helium boasts a myriad of critical applications across multiple industries including healthcare, tech, aerospace, and energy. 

MRI machines can’t function without it. Microchip manufacturers require it. It’s used for cooling supercomputers and for pressurizing rockets. And it has advanced applications in the nuclear industry as well. 

When it comes to extremely low-temperature environments (below minus 429 degrees F), there simply is no substitute for helium in its liquid form. 

But there’s a problem. 

Although helium is the second most abundant element in the universe — accounting for around 25% of the atoms in the universe — it is a non-renewable resource here on Earth, which means our supply of helium will not last forever.

Helium is generated deep underground through the natural radioactive decay of elements such as uranium and thorium. 

Sophia Hayes, a chemist at Washington University in St. Louis, states, “It takes many, many millennia to make the helium that’s here on the Earth. The helium seeps up through the Earth’s crust and gets trapped in pockets of natural gas where it can be extracted.”

And since it cannot be renewed, our planet is indeed running out of helium — FAST! 

A number of factors have converged in the last few years to create the current shortage, which has helium prices up as much as 100% since the start of last year. 

Culprit #1 is Russia and the world’s continued overreliance on Russian supply. 

The giant state-owned Russian energy company Gazprom was supposed to start up a huge natural gas processing plant to process gas flowing to China through the 3,000 km Power of Siberia pipeline in the Amur Region of Siberia in late 2021. 

The waste gas from the Amur Plant is rich in helium and is an ideal feed gas for a helium purification and liquefaction plant. 

But that hasn’t happened. 

The Amur Plant — which will eventually comprise three separate plants — has the potential to produce up to one-third of current worldwide capacity.

Yet, a host of problems has ensued. 

The first plant, after producing helium for only a few short weeks, was taken down in 2021 for some final construction items. While it was offline, a fire broke out leading to a massive explosion in the natural gas processing plant that produces helium feed gas.

Needless to say, the event resulted in a massive setback for the plant, which it has yet to recover from. 

You also have to factor in the continued impact of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the potential for Western sanctions on any helium that’s eventually produced by the Russia-owned enterprise.  

There are issues right here in the United States as well. 

Around the same time as the catastrophic Amur explosion, a major leak at the Cliffside crude helium enrichment plant near Amarillo, Texas, put a temporary clamp on the flow of helium in the southwestern United States.

That shutdown removed more than 10% of global capacity from the market, shedding light on just how susceptible today’s global helium market is to major supply disruptions. 

On top of that, a fire broke out at a natural gas processing plant in Haven, Kansas, that produces crude helium… and we’ve seen reduced helium production across-the-board from major producer Algeria as well.  

As supply continues to be constrained, helium demand is only going up.   

As a result, industry analysts expect the growing supply/demand imbalance to support higher helium prices and demand growth through 2028 where the market could balloon — no pun intended — to US$6.5 billion.

A handful of North American helium-focused investment opportunities are popping up as a result… and, as always, we have you covered every step of the way. 

Check out our brand-new report, which features an exciting, ultra low-priced helium opportunity spanning from Canada’s plains to the Colorado Rockies.