Many Arab countries including Saudi Arabia cut off all ties with Qatar recently. How could this crisis affect children’s parties? Qatar produces about 25 per cent of the world’s helium
Balloons to MRI scanners
The element is needed to use or make semiconductors, rocket fuel, computer hard drives, the Large Hadron Collider, magnets in MRI machines, airships, scuba tanks, arc welding and of course, balloons, writes Sarah Zhang in the Atlantic
Qatar used to send its helium supply over land through Saudi to a port in the UAE. From there, the gas goes to Singapore and the rest of the world. But because of the dispute, Saudi and UAE have cut off this route, Zhang adds
It’s not just gas
So, what if Qatar’s helium does not get out? Can’t other countries step up and produce more of the element? This is where it gets tricky. Helium is usually not extracted directly, it is a byproduct of natural gas extraction
Tanzania to fill the vacuum?
Qatar’s natural gas does not have high concentrations of helium. But the country produces so much natural gas that it has accumulated helium as a byproduct. Since helium is a byproduct, other companies find it hard to fill the vacuum
To produce little helium, companies have to extract huge quantities of natural gas. This is why a recent discovery of a gas field in Tanzania is significant. The gas underground has about 10 per cent helium. And a company called Helium One wants to tap it compensate for the dearth