I redacted identifying information (to the best of my ability) and also removed vendor names (and personal messages to me). Below are the stories that we have been sharing with APS and ACS both, to help inform their policy committees. Many people are trying to help out researchers who need to access helium for superconducting magnets. So stay tuned, and know that what you're experiencing with shortages and price hikes isn't unique.
Getting the word out at a time of supply cutbacks is important - and AMMRL has been invaluable in that regard.
Here's the summary of the stories we heard...
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[Canada]
Ok, great...not that much to say except that, to respond to point 2: helium costs have traditionally been about 1/6 of our operating cost, so since we had a price increase of 150% (so that we're now paying 2.5 times what we used to) in September, I've increased nighttime NMR costs by 40% for an overall increase of, hopefully, 13%. However, it's likely that we'll also have to cut back on software purchases and probably conference trips as well.
Thanks for doing this and hope that it is useful! I doubt that the situation in Canada is very different from the US. In [Canadian city], one issue is that there aren't many suppliers - only one will sell us helium. No supply problems (yet?), but there has been a large price increase.
[SH: followed up with more details...]
Sorry, actually, I had the initial price wrong - it was $8.15 per litre (CAD), and now it's $25, so it's gone up by 200%! (There was a time when it was going to be $10/L, and that's what I was thinking about.) So it's gone from about 1/6 of the budget to about 40%, assuming nothing else is cut back on. I will feel bad if we don't keep up our [software] license, but I'll also feel bad asking faculty for conference money while also telling them that instrument rates are going up!
There are two companies that will deliver in [Canadian city], but one ([X]) doesn't seem to have enough helium to supply us, though they are bound by a multi-year contract to supply all universities in the province at $10/L, whereas the other one ([Y]) has supply (at least for us) but the price is more. [Z] quoted [another AMMRL member] $45/L - they may have some supply, but they don't seem to be interested.
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[WI]
Late last summer we were scheduled to move our NMR system into our new building. We were told by the vendor we needed 400 L of lHe on hand because we were doing a warm move. Our state university system has a single contractor for cryogens and compressed gases, but they could not provide that much He. Our stockroom director did a lot of hunting around, but there was not a single He supplier in the country that could provide that much He. Our move was delayed as a result.
[SH: followed up with more details :]
We had the instrument relocated around Aug. 21-24. However, the delay in getting He caused us to lose our window on the vendor's schedule to re-energize, so they bumped us back to mid-Sept. The vendor's engineer didn't finish console setup, cryoshimming, etc. until Sept. 17. The re-energization thus happened after classes started, which is not ideal, because we lost the use of the instrument at a time when we needed it for teaching and research (rather than at the slow end of summer, as originally scheduled). I also could not do the post-energizing maintenance when I could afford the time to do that work (before classes started). Lack of He was the only reason we could not move the instrument on schedule.
I don't think they charged more to have the engineer come back on a second trip.
The vendor DID offer to provide a bit more He (if they had any to spare at month's end) - at a cost of $22/L! Usury...
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[CO]
In October we were told that we had reached our allocation and no Helium would be available for at least 6-8 weeks. We have a 900 MHz that needs 250 liters every 4 weeks. We went 10 weeks without helium and have never quite got back to a complete fill.
More importantly our Helium cost went up ~47% at that time. Our cost for the 900 alone are now $56K/ year and that cost has to be passed on to our users.
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[NY]
I have a 7.1T magnet that takes about 45 liters of helium every thirteen weeks. The distributer I buy from sells 60 liters as their smallest so I am forced to over purchase each fill. In the last two months the price per liter increased by 40% so instead of spending ~$850 per fill I now spend ~$1200. This is very high and is affecting my supplies budget. My supplier [X] and they informed me that the prices went up by 40% so of course they are passing on the increase to their customers.
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[TX]
My school, [College Z], was one of the first schools to participate in the ACS/APS Helium pilot program. Things were working - we were able to get helium through the DLA when the suppliers would not put us on their lists, until November. We were informed that the DLA could not provide our helium. They contacted me last week, quoting a price of $21/L, more than double what we had been paying. The only reason I was able to get helium for my magnet this January was by contacting [Vendor X], and having them do a fill. That cost $2000 for 100L dewar (we did not need that much) and included them filling the magnet. If our prices double, I don't know where we are going to find the operating costs to pay to have a high field NMR.
I haven't talked to anybody in administration about it yet. I'm looking at sharing He with one of the other schools in town - they have exactly the same magnet and have been ordering 100L every 6 months, they're paying for more than they need (they could fill with 60L), so we might be able to work out a program where we go in together - they're an established customer. If that didn't work out, we might have to bring down our magnet, but it is the only one we have. It is also the only solid state spectrometer in a 200 mile radius, and the only solid state spectrometer that is available publicly, meaning folks can submit samples, in a much larger area. If we shared a magnet with [College X] or [College Y], we would lose the ability to do solids work - I sincerely doubt they would be interested in changing probes - or do the training of undergraduates that we currently do.
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[IL]
I know that this is a huge concern, but have I to admit not for us. We have a contract with [X] for helium fills and have never had a problem. This means that we are probably overpaying for helium. That being said, we had to decommission and sell our 400 and 600 because they were not being used 60% of the time (as someone said neither are the fire extinguishers). So, I guess this was an indirect reflection of the cost of doing NMR.
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[national vendor]
I just mentioned this tweet, because I saw it shortly before I read your mail. It might also be worth mentioning in government circles, that filling NMR magnets with cryogens is an "essential" function that should be maintained during extended shutdowns.
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[Midwest & Southwest] Our experience, for what it's worth, has perhaps been atypical. We operate 5 magnets between [redated]. In 2013/2014 we were above $18/liter. In 2015 we negotiated a price of $16.15/liter and it has been stable every since. We have had no delays or supply interruptions. [X] is our provider. Maybe we have just been lucky.
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[NJ]
We are a small private college with a 300 MHz NMR as a mainstay instrument for both teaching and research purposes. We are well located in [NJ] and thus have not had much issue with supply.
Being in an area with many industrial users and suppliers has not caused us any problems. However, the cost of liquid Helium has gone through the roof for us. It used to be about $800vback in about 2012 or so and about
$500 in 2008 to get a 60L dewar of liquid helium in here to fill our instrument. It is now over $1200 for the same dewar of helium. This in a time when academic budgets are flat at small institutions like ours has meant that we have gone longer in between fills to just to stretch our $$. So while the helium supply chain has been a huge issue for large research institutions, it also hits small colleges that use high field NMR. For us the budget has been a real concern.
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[VA]
I'm the manager of a campus wide NMR facility at the [VA]. We have 6 spectrometers: 2X500MHz, 3X600, and 800. Last Spring our long term supplier ([X]) could often not deliver the amount of helium that we ordered. We switched to [Y], who get their helium from [Z]. We are now paying 50% more than we did 10 months ago. We have to order 2 to three weeks in advance instead of 5 days in advance (which we did in Spring, 2018 and earlier). Due to my concern about lack of helium availability I order about 1.25 times more frequently than in the past so that our magnets would not have dangerously low helium levels if we could not get helium for a few weeks.
I noticed that [X] [redacted] [Z] a few months ago but we still cannot get helium from [X], I'm not sure why and our [X] contact cannot tell me. I have spent some time on the internet looking for info about helium supply and have not found any authoritative explanation of the recent shortages. It would be very helpful if this info were available and if there were a well researched and supported estimate of future helium availability so labs like mine could make a good choice about whether or not to install a helium recycling system. Please let me know if you have seen any good predictions about helium availability in the future.
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[MD]
In our NMR facility, we had a liquid He shortage in July 2018. Our vendor was trying to supply us liquid He as much as possible. However, due to the worldwide shortage issue, we could not get enough supply from our vendor. For example, we could not receive our order on time and the amount in each dewar is not full. Thus, one of our magnets was decommissioned to save limited liquid He for other magnets. The vendor has tried their best, and the shortage is worldwide issue which could not be solved by the vendor itself. Since our University has a contract withe the vendor, the price did not change during the difficult time. However, I guess the price will increase with the new contract starting from this year. Now, I worry very much if we will get enough liquid He for installing our new instruments in this coming summer. I also heard the neighboring Federal institutes such as NIH had difficult time to get liquid He. But I did not know the detail.
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At [MA], we have seen liquid helium price quadrupled over the past decade, from ca. $4.5/L to $20/L. In the past year, price increased three times, first $12.5/L, then $14.5/L, then $17.5/L, then $20/L. It feels like the hyperinflation in Venezuela! We could only get it from a small distributor, [X], who purchases from [Y]. Neither [Y] nor [A] would directly supply us, citing "worldwide helium shortage".
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[Canada]
If the Canadian perspective helps here is my experience.
1) We have not had any problem with supply: The company our university has an "exclusive" contract with for compressed gases, including liquid helium, could not take on any "new" customers when the contract came into effect ca. April 2018. I doubt we will ever get a drop from them, whether at the contracted price or any other (long history of discontented customers with that company at our institution). The company we have used for the past 8 years has no supply issue, but their price has tripled since July of 2018.
2) Due to this increase in the price of liquid helium, the overall cost to run our facility (my part-time salary, cryogens and miscellaneous odds and ends, repairs) has increased 30%. My salary is covered by a grant, but all other operating costs are recuperated from user fees. The rise in helium price means the amount we need to recuperate has increased by 140%.
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[Canada]
I'm not certain if you are principally looking for information from laboratories in the USA, but below is some of our experiences in [], Canada.
We had an incident in the summer or 2018, where our regular supplier was unable to provide helium (Multi-Institution contract _at_ $CDN 10 per litre), and we only found out they could not deliver on the day we expected delivery.. We were able to arrange for helium from an alternate supplier who was able to deliver. Initially the additional cost for this security of delivery was $12 per litre, this then went to $18. In January 2019, we were informed it was now $25. We have had to put our orders for helium three weeks before delivery date, and confirm one week before if and how-much helium we will be receiving
We had an older unshielded 400 MHz magnet, which due to the vertical stray field we could not move to our new building (move spring/summer 2019) with a very short hold time (6 weeks max). The short hold-time of this magnet made the gamble of will we or won't we receive helium this week too risky. Thus, we took the decision to move up the date of decommissioning by a few months and brought the magnet down from field in January 2019. By modifying how certain other instruments in our facility are utilised (autosampler vs. walk-up, booking time limits, etc.) we have been able to accommodate the increased demand on existing routine instruments, however, we are now running at near full capacity. It is far from ideal, especially as the demand is higher owing to several students/postdocs working extra hours so as too try and finish their research (lab portions) before the disruption of moving the entire Chemistry department to a new building.
Sophia E. Hayes
Professor, Department of Chemistry, Washington University
1 Brookings Drive, Box 1134
St. Louis, MO 63130
Tel. (314) 935-4624 Email: hayes_at_wustl.edu
Received on Fri Feb 22 2019 - 07:34:58 MST