Helium just got a new title in Washington: critical material. The U.S. Department of Energy made the designation official Friday, citing the gas's essential role in semiconductor manufacturing and mounting concerns about global supply disruptions. The move unlocks more federal financing for helium producers and puts the government on a path to monitor the gas more closely.
The timing is no accident. As the Associated Press reports, the designation comes as the global helium supply faces real risk of disruption, with Qatar's exports severely curtailed following Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz and strikes on Qatar's infrastructure amid its war with Israel and the United States. Russia, another top producer, imposed its own temporary export controls on helium in April to protect its domestic supply, according to the same report by the Associated Press, whose story first appeared via WSB-TV.
Helium is produced primarily as a byproduct of natural gas processing, and it is indispensable for making semiconductors essential to energy generation. One-fifth of the world's helium is consumed by the semiconductor industry alone, according to CBS News, which reports that roughly 40% to 50% of the machines inside a typical chip fabrication plant use the gas in some way, across hundreds of steps in the manufacturing process.
Why Chipmakers Are Already Feeling the Pinch
The strain isn't theoretical. Helium suppliers have already placed some semiconductor companies and research laboratories on allocation — essentially a rationing program — according to the same CBS News report. Spot prices for helium have reportedly tripled since the start of the war, per former Air Liquide executive Rich Brooke, cited in that CBS News account. Qatar's Ras Laffan facility, which produces helium as a byproduct of natural gas, was expected to take at least three years to return to full operation after being struck, the outlet reports.
Beyond chips, helium plays a role in wind, solar and nuclear energy production, space exploration, medical imaging and research, the Associated Press notes. The gas is prized for a rare combination of properties: it's non-combustible and has the lowest boiling point of any gas, making it difficult to substitute in applications like superconducting magnets, quantum computing and supercomputing hardware.
Officials Frame It as a Competitiveness Issue
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the designation reflects a broader push to cut reliance on foreign sources of critical materials. He said the Trump administration is reducing reliance on foreign sources of critical materials, strengthening domestic manufacturing, supporting American jobs, and securing materials important to economic and national security, per the Associated Press report.
Audrey Robertson, assistant secretary of energy overseeing the Department of Energy's Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation, framed the stakes even more starkly. She said helium could be a single point of failure and is important to American competitiveness and energy security, according to the same wire report. Helium is now the 20th critical material identified by the Department of Energy, joining a list that added metallurgical coal used for steelmaking in 2025; fluorine is the only other gas on the list. A critical-material designation requires that a non-fuel mineral element or substance serve an essential function in an energy technology while facing high supply-chain disruption risk.
The private sector has been pushing for this move. Avanti Helium Corp. said a formal U.S. designation of helium as a critical resource is urgent, while backers of the designation argue that increased North American helium supply is needed to avoid dependence on foreign sources.
A Supply Chain Already Stretched Thin
The numbers show just how tight the market already is. The U.S. produced 81 million cubic meters of helium in 2025, accounting for 43% of global supply, and exported 38 million cubic meters that same year — figures reported by the Associated Press. Production has held roughly steady at about 80 million cubic meters annually since 2021, but extraction plants are already at their limits, and new ones take years to permit and build, a constraint the Department of Energy has cited directly.
Most of the country's helium comes from a single facility in Wyoming, according to the Wyoming Energy Authority as cited by CBS News, while the largest extraction plants as of 2023 were spread across Kansas, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma. Helium reserves themselves are located in Wyoming, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Utah. The U.S. remains the world's largest producer of natural gas and helium, with Qatar and Russia rounding out the top three producers globally.
The federal government's own role in the helium market shifted dramatically after Congress mandated in 2013 the privatization of the Texas strategic helium stockpile. The Bureau of Land Management completed the sale of the federal helium system to Messer, an industrial gas company, in 2024, ending federal ownership of the nation's helium reserves — a process detailed in a Bureau of Land Management press release.
A History of Shifting Priorities
Helium's status on federal lists has flip-flopped before. The U.S. Geological Survey included helium on its 2018 critical-minerals list, but later lists omitted it because domestic supply was considered secure at the time — a reversal that underscores how quickly the calculus around the gas has changed amid the recent disruptions.
Not everyone agrees the path forward is simple. Greeshma Gadikota, director of Columbia University's Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, said recovering helium from natural gas carries both environmental concerns and opportunities. Burning natural gas produces substantial carbon dioxide emissions, though helium use does not necessarily contribute to greenhouse gas emissions when the gas is extracted and used on its own. Gadikota said that if natural gas extraction continues regardless, she would prefer using it to directly produce hydrogen — a clean-burning fuel — and solid carbon, which can provide permanent carbon sequestration. She also said that greater U.S. refining, recovery and use capabilities could support domestic manufacturing and justify taxpayer investment in helium production and refining.
