RE: Months of Disruption Minimum It Seems9 Mar 2026 08:47
Helium containers become a problem
Given the effects of rerouting helium cargoes when de-escalation does eventually occur, fears also exist that containers and transport capacity for helium will be in shortage in addition to the product itself.
Richard Brook, consultant and CEO at Garrison Ventures, had already raised this concern during a gasworld webinar on 4th March, in which he advised customers to think about diversifying their helium supplies amidst the possibility of a Helium Shortage 5.0.
On the issue of shipping and distribution, he explained, “The number of ISO containers that have to flow to Qatar to be filled and then reverse course and come out on ships to be distributed around the world is literally a third of the world’s supply. And to lose that won’t really matter as long as this doesn’t last for more than a couple of weeks. But as this drags on, companies will need to reorient their supply chains.”
“There are full ISOs of helium that were produced at Ras Laffan before it shut down. Getting them out is a problem. The companies involved in that activity are going to have to come up with alternative supply chains that go by land around the Straits of Hormuz. That’s possible, but those supply chains are very tenuous.”
“And then when it all tries to correct itself, there’ll be a reverse course of all this activity to reorient all those ISOs going back to where they should have been in the first place. This will be extremely disruptive, and I cannot understate the level of that disruption.”
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