Helium demand balloons as Mideast supplies deflate: Can Canada meet the moment?

A worker uses a fishing net to circulate a roomful of helium-filled balloons at the grand opening of SUMMIT One Vanderbilt, a skyscraper observatory on Manhattan’s iconic 42nd Street, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) – The Canadian Press

CALGARY — An unusual inquiry came recently to the Calgary office of Avanti Helium Corp., an explorer for the ultralight gas used for applications as wide-ranging as party balloons and space exploration.

It was a prospective customer from the Middle East, where a sizable share of the world’s helium supply normally originates, reaching out to a provider half a world away.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Chris Bakker, Avanti’s chief executive, recalled thinking. “I never thought I’d be shipping right in their backyard like that.”

Turmoil in the oil and natural gas markets may have garnered the most headlines since the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February, but the conflict has also upended helium supplies. Canada has raw resource in the ground to help fill the gap — but industry players say the government lacks the right policies and incentives for them to develop and sell it.

Helium has a wide array of uses, and in almost all cases there is nothing that can act as a substitute. The inert element cools MRI machines, pressurizes rocket components and helps detect leaks in nuclear plants. It’s also a vital input in the manufacturing of advanced computer chips, representing an estimated 10 to 15 per cent of global helium demand as the artificial intelligence sector booms.

“And that share is rising pretty fast,” said Karen Hui, project co-ordinator with the Asia Pacific Foundation’s Canada-Indo-Pacific Critical Minerals Hub. Big Asian players in the chip manufacturing space, like Taiwan and South Korea, are hugely dependent on Qatari helium, and tend not to keep much in the way of backup supplies, she said.

Helium can be produced alongside natural gas, as is the case in Qatar, which accounted for about one third of global supplies before Iran hit key infrastructure earlier this year. Output has been sharply reduced and it’s been estimated it could take three to five years for repairs to be complete.

And then there’s the Strait of Hormuz to contend with. Since the war began, few ships have been able to exit the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the open sea.

“It’s very likely that Qatar won’t fully restart until they trust the strait is genuinely safe, and we are not seeing that right now,” Hui said.

Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, and Russian export controls on helium as it looks to meet its own military needs, have taken yet more supplies out of the equation.

An MRI machine is shown at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital on Tuesday, May 1, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

“The security of supply story I don’t think can be overstated,” said Bakker, who says he has also been fielding calls from potential Chinese buyers for the first time in years.

Canada has one-fifth of the world’s helium reserves, but makes up about two per cent of global production. The resource is mainly centred in the southern Prairies. One of the biggest players, North American Helium, is looking to establish a helium hub in southwest Saskatchewan.

Unlike in Qatar, helium in Western Canada can be found in pockets of nitrogen deep underground, in separate formations from where natural gas lies. It’s extracted using the kind of no-frills rigs used in conventional oil and gas drilling.

Helium is notoriously difficult to store and transport, as it becomes a liquid at an extraordinarily cold -269 C. Canada does not have the ability domestically to liquefy the gas — a necessary step for long-haul transport — so what supply it does produce is trucked to the U.S. for processing. North American Helium is aiming to build Canada’s first liquefaction facility in Saskatchewan.

“We believe that this industry can be a major reliable, secure supplier of helium to the world that increasingly needs it and increasingly is finding itself prone to geopolitical pressures,” said Richard Dunn, executive director of the Helium Developers Association of Canada.

“We think we’re on the cusp of something.”

Helium is one of the 34 minerals and metals the Canadian government has designated as critical, meaning the supply chain is threatened and that there is a reasonable chance of it being produced in Canada. But a “quirk” in the Income Tax Act means helium doesn’t receive the same tax treatment as the other 33 minerals on the list, said Dunn.

Helium developers have been urging the federal government to rectify that so the industry can attract the capital it needs to ramp up production enough for domestic liquefaction to make economic sense. Among other things, helium companies with no current revenues want to be able to pass on tax credits to their investors through flow-through shares — an important source of financing in the resource space. They also want to have access to the Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit.

“We are not looking for anything (from) the government that is not in their economic tool box,” said Dunn.

A semiconductor silicon wafer fabricated with multiple microchip microprocessors is at the school of microelectronic engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Henrietta, N.Y., on Monday, April 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

Dunn’s group has been lobbying hard and plans to make submissions to Ottawa ahead of its next budget. The tone he’s heard so far has been encouraging.

“Securing access to critical minerals, including helium, is a priority for Canada,” Tim Hodgson, the federal natural resources minister, wrote in a letter to Dunn in June.

“Natural Resources Canada acknowledges your requests for support for the Canadian helium industry, and I recognize the potential these measures could have in growing Canada’s helium industry. I look forward to progress in securing a sustainable supply of helium for Canada.”

Hui said Ottawa could also help by acting as an “anchor” for production through long-term offtake agreements, underpinning early investments in an uncertain industry. There are also financial tools, like contracts for difference, that can shield producers from short-term commodity price swings.

In addition to liquefaction capabilities, the industry would need specialized cryogenic containers to ship the liquid helium long distances around the globe and the rail and port infrastructure to get it around, Hui added.

In the meantime, Avanti has been focusing on starting production from a field in Montana, where Bakker says the business environment is more conducive to deploying capital quickly. Land the company has on the Alberta side of the border is dormant for now.

“We would love to come back and re-establish our position here.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 2, 2026.

Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press

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