Hello All and a Happy New Year,
As a follow-up up to a recent AMMRL inquiry on the liquid helium situation,
I'd like to submit a brief status. I reached out to Phil Kornbluth of
Kornbluth Helium Consulting LLC (a leading expert in the field) and he was
kind enough to provide this information. Many of you may remember Phil as an
IVAN Zoom meeting panel leader on this topic last May. Abstract and video of
that meeting here
https://ivanmr.com/2022/05/19/helium-crisis-4-0-as-it-pertains-to-the-nmr-community/
for those interested.
Anyway, here is what Phil had to say:
Helium Shortage 4.0 is continuing, but the shortage has been a bit less
severe toward the end of 2022 and heading into 2023 because the Bureau of
Land Management's (BLM) Crude Helium Enrichment Unit has been back in
operation since June, with only a few minor upsets. To the best of my
knowledge, 4 of the 5 Helium Majors (everyone but Air Products) are still
allocating supply, but, in some cases, allocation percentages have been
increased compared to H1 2022 levels. I expect the shortage to continue
until there is sustained production from Gazprom's Amur Project and it is
able to get to market. While Gazprom is hoping to restart their 1st helium
plant in Q2, with the 2nd plant a few months behind, there is tremendous
uncertainty around how difficult it will be to move the helium to Asian
markets. These uncertainties are related to the war in Ukraine, the impact
of sanctions on logistics and container availability and the ability of
off-takers based in sanctioning countries to fulfill their contractual
commitments. While there could be some relief from the shortage during the
latter part of 2023 in a most optimistic scenario, it seems more likely that
Helium Shortage 4.0 will extend into 2024.
Best regards,
Jon
MR Resources, Inc.
The Leader in NMR Spectrometers, Services and Parts
160 Authority Drive
Fitchburg, MA 01420
www.mrr.com <
http://www.mrr.com/>
Tel: 978-345-9011
Received on Fri Jan 06 2023 - 07:51:07 MST