Spinlanders,
I cannot join you all at the ENC this year due to seemingly never-ending budget constraints. Regarding helium supply, I have an untested opinion on the matter, which I think it is worth throwing to the whole group as food for thought:
If you use cryogens, and LHe especially, then you need a contract with a large refiner, and the larger the contract, the better the refiners will treat you. Their largest contracts get the priority supply in lean times. Here at Purdue we have a nuclear accelerator, 10 NMR magnets, an EPR, around a half-dozen FTMS magnets, and 3 MRIs, plus a very large research campus full of other instrumentation using compressed gases. The entire campus has an exclusive supply contract with Linde for all pressurized gas cylinders and cryogens, including rather large LN2 bulk tanks on at least 5 buildings. That makes the value of our contract large enough to avoid getting orders refused or dropped during shortages. The worst we have experienced was a freeze at the same LHe delivery levels as the previous year. That is NOT to say that the price stays the same each year. Of course the price keeps going up, but that is a budget problem, not a supply problem.
The question all small LHe users need to ask is "Who are my neighbors that need large quantities of the same LN2, LHe and gas cylinders that I need small quantities of, plus any other gases and cryogens like LOX I might not need?" The answer in many cases is the nearest hospital or better yet an area-wide hospital network. For purposes of this discussion I'll refer to a hospital, but in other cases it might be a large automobile factory or other machine factory. In some areas it might be a cryogen/magnet service company. These large quantity users are your competition for supply during shortages, and they will always win. The key to avoiding shortages, IMO is to make them your partners instead of your competition! If I was a small quantity user, I would try to piggyback my deliveries on a larger contract. Get the hospital's price and the hospital's priority by establishing a partnership of sorts, whether it be through medical school contacts, research collaborators, drug trial contacts, spectral service customers, technical curriculum committee contacts, or whatever means you can to get someone at the hospital to allow you to order LHe through them and ask their purchasing office to set up billing you. This might mean that you have to go to the hospital with a pickup truck every 10 weeks to pick up a 60L transport dewar and then return it empty, but at least you'll have a higher priority customer to ride out shortages on the back of. The increase in their annual contract value due to your added quantity will also improve the hospital's price and priority, so that is a win-win selling point for your proposal to them.
Many small quantity NMR users get their LHe and LN2 from a welding supply house because small-quantity, occasional users are common accounts for welding suppliers. IMO this is a bad idea. Who is the welding supply house's best customer? The machine shop or factory who buys many other supplies in addition to cryogens and welding gases is their priority, NOT the local state college NMR manager. In shortages, a welding house will supply their welding customers first. Also, who does the welding supply house buy their cryogens and gases from? They buy those products from the large refiners like Linde, Air Products, and PraxAir, so they are marking up the price (oops, I slipped back into a budget issue.) They are a middle man, and it pays to avoid the middle man if at all possible, not only to avoid his markup, but also to avoid his decisions during a shortage.
There, that's my 2 cents worth. I don't have a successful example or proven model, so as is it's just an opinion.
Best regards, -Hirsch
Jerry Hirschinger, NMR Instrumentation Specialist
Purdue Interdepartmental NMR Facility
560 Oval Dr. West Lafayette, IN 47907-2084
Office: Wetherill 365A
Phone / Fax: (765) 494-5288 / 494-0239
Cellular: (765) 427-3034
Received on Mon Mar 24 2014 - 05:08:17 MST