After three years of significant shortages, the global helium business now finds itself in a state of over-supply. Some estimates suggest that the entry of new capacity in the market in late 2013 and early 2014 achieved up to a 25% increment in world helium supply.
Start-up of the world’s largest helium purification and liquefaction unit – Qatar II – at Ras Laffan and expansion of the Skikda plant in Algeria were perhaps the most notable additions in capacity, though a small amount of product from Gazprom’s renewed Orenburg plant in Russia also buoyed the market.
Coupled with a relative lack of major outages at a number of the industry’s key sources, and continued supply from the Federal Helium Reserve in the medium term, last year saw the great helium pendulum swing in rapid fashion – from stark shortages to over-supply.
Qatar II
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