Nobody Closed a Helium Plant

The US Geological Survey published its helium chapter in February. American plants sold 81 million cubic metres of Grade-A and gaseous helium during 2025.

Six new helium operations started up, three of them in New Mexico. A storage cavern came online at Beaumont. And the posted base price for Grade-A fell to $330 per thousand cubic feet, from $390 the year before.

That is the survey of a loose market.

Three weeks after it published, Airgas declared force majeure.

The removal column has no American entry

Qatar's two helium plants at Ras Laffan, online since 2005 and 2013, both sit on the LNG trains. QatarEnergy LNG puts the pair at "approximately 25% of the world's total helium production" with both running full.

USGS is less modest on Qatar's behalf. Its 2025 estimate has Qatar at 64 million cubic metres of a 183 million world total, which is 35%, against 80 million for the United States.

Two countries, 79% of the molecules.

Ras Laffan was hit in March, QatarEnergy declared force majeure, and the helium went with the gas for the plainest reason there is.

"There is no helium being produced if LNG production is shut."

By late July that force majeure had run into a fourth month, with 17% of Qatar's LNG capacity expected to stay down for as long as five years while two facilities are repaired.

We keep a file of plants that stopped. This one has no announcement, no consultation, no WARN notice and no tonnage, because helium is a co-product of somebody else's process, the same way the Wesseling butadiene unit we traced earlier today is a co-product of somebody else's cracker.

Nobody decided to take it out.