Helium Becomes the 20th Critical Material, but the Label Adds No Supply

The United States sold other countries 38 million cubic meters of helium in 2025 and bought 8 million, nearly five to one in its favor. On Friday, Oct. 23, the Energy Department made helium a critical material and said the move advances the commitment to freeing America from reliance on foreign sources of critical materials.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has designated helium a critical material under the Energy Act of 2020, the 20th material on DOE's critical-materials-for-energy list, by AP's and CBS's count, and the first addition since metallurgical coal on May 22, 2025, about 17 months earlier. The notice, "Critical Material List; Addition of Helium," was signed Wednesday, Oct. 21 by Assistant Secretary Audrey Robertson and posted by DOE on Oct. 23. DOE's copy is a pre-publication version, and as of Saturday, Oct. 24, I could not find it in the Federal Register. DOE's lead reason is semiconductor manufacturing. The announcement came five days after CBS aired a 60 Minutes report on shortages caused by the Iran war. That is sequence, not cause: no DOE document mentions the broadcast.

The short answer for anyone asking what the label does: it is a statement of intent with a research-and-finance hook. It adds no helium, creates no stockpile, restricts no exports and, on the text of the statute, starts no permitting clock.

The notice names no money, no stockpile and no export rule

"Critical material" and "critical mineral" sound alike. They are two lists, kept by two agencies, under two tests. The Energy Department's list asks whether a non-fuel material faces a high risk of supply disruption and does an essential job in an energy technology. The Interior Department's list, maintained with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), asks whether a mineral is essential to the economic or national security of the United States. Both tests come from the statute's text.

Helium has traveled between them. The Associated Press reports USGS listed it in 2018, then dropped it because domestic supply looked secure; it is absent from the 2022 list of 50 minerals and the 2025 list of 60. Now it sits on the other agency's list: a DOE critical material, and for now not a USGS critical mineral.

The distinction matters because of what the statute attaches to each. For DOE's label, the text points to a program of research, development, demonstration and commercialization, plus a Critical Materials Consortium, a research facility and an information portal. The time limits for Federal Register notices on exploration and mine permits are written for critical minerals, meaning the USGS list. DOE's own release blames limited refining capacity and lengthy permitting timelines for holding back U.S. production. Read literally, the label does not touch the second problem, and DOE has not said which of its programs will apply to helium.

The AP and CBS report that the designation makes more federal financing available to producers, and the AP adds that the government will monitor helium more closely. That may prove right, but neither the DOE release nor the posted notice mentions financing, monitoring, a stockpile, an export rule or a dollar amount. Treat the financing as reported, not documented.

There is no stockpile to draw on, either. USGS's February 2026 helium summary lists the government stockpile as "None." Congress ordered the federal helium program, begun in 1925, privatized in 1996, and the Bureau of Land Management says the sale to Messer closed on June 24, 2024, about two years and four months ago. Patrick Wilson of the Semiconductor & Innovation Group told Foreign Policy in April that the government basically has no strategic reserve anymore.

Geology is not the constraint DOE describes. USGS puts U.S. reserves at 8,500 million cubic meters, roughly 105 years at 2025 sales (a rough ratio, not a forecast), and says six new operations began producing last year. What nobody outside the industry knows is how much helium sits in the U.S. storage caverns: consultant Rich Brooke calls the figure closely guarded. Robertson told the AP helium could be a single point of failure the country cannot allow, and that the designation matters not necessarily for our birthday parties but for the future of American competitiveness.

Qatar is a third of the world's helium and a small slice of America's

Start with where the gas comes from. In 2025 the United States produced an estimated 81 million cubic meters, about 42.6% of the world's 190 million, and Qatar 63 million, about 33.2%. Together they made three of every four.

CBS reports the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in February trapped one-third of global supply in the Persian Gulf (the same chokepoint behind the war-risk insurance for oil tankers Washington took on in August). CBS also reports Iranian strikes on Qatar's Ras Laffan complex in March, and says the Qataris put the return to full operation at three years at least. Ras Laffan did not answer CBS about helium damage, so how much of its helium plant is hurt is unknown.

Now the part the designation's language skips. U.S. consumption in 2025 was 51 million cubic meters, USGS says, and imports of 8 million were about 15.7% of it. USGS has listed the country as a net exporter every year from 2021 through 2025. Net exports were 30 million cubic meters last year.

Qatar supplied 28% of U.S. imports in 2021-24, USGS says. Apply that to 2025's 8 million and Qatar accounts for roughly 2.2 million cubic meters, about 4.4% of U.S. use. That is a rough estimate mixing years. The Korea International Trade Association reportedly found 64.7% of South Korea's helium imports came from Qatar in 2025, according to Tom's Hardware. The exposed customers are in Asia, which fits Brooke's account: chipmakers in Korea, Taiwan and Singapore turned to U.S. supply right away. The 60 Minutes report, citing Census Bureau data, says U.S. helium exports are up 70% since the war began.

So an unanswered question sits under the label. DOE frames the support as aid to American manufacturing, while the country's helium is leaving. The notice says nothing about export rules or who gets priority, and it would be a guess to predict either.

A fab's real risk is allocation, not price

Why do chipmakers care? Etching, in Scientific American's description, is the selective removal of material to give a chip its features. It can happen hundreds of times per wafer, Mike Corbett of Linx Consulting told the magazine in March, and the temperature has to be controlled very accurately because the etch profile changes with it. Fabs blow helium on the backs of wafers to draw heat away. Helium conducts heat well and reacts with almost nothing.

That explains Polar Semiconductors, a fab outside Minneapolis, where president Surya Iyer told 60 Minutes that almost 40% to 50% of the machines use helium somehow. Polar buys from three suppliers, and one has put it on allocation, a rationing scheme. Without helium, Iyer said, the plant would have to shut down.

The cost side is the surprise, and it is why price is not the main threat to a fab. Corbett's arithmetic:

"Helium is less than 1 percent of a cost of a processed wafer," he says, and then: "So you're not going to shut down a fab because you have to double your helium price."

Mike Corbett, managing partner, Linx Consulting, to Scientific American

If price barely matters, supply does. Scientific American reports that switching vendors takes months of requalification, and almost no fab recycles helium. Substitution is no easier: USGS says nothing replaces helium in cryogenic work below minus 429 degrees Fahrenheit. A shortage here shows up as rationed gas first and higher prices second. Chip supply was already tight this year: Apple said in June that price increases were unavoidable as memory costs surged.

How long does it last? SEMI, a semiconductor supply-chain association, told Foreign Policy that even if the strait opened that day, normal supply would take an estimated four to six months. CBS, citing the Compressed Gas Association, puts chips at one-fifth of the world's helium. There is a dissent: in March, TechInsights vice chair G. Dan Hutcheson called Qatar's disruption likely a nothing burger for chip sales, because supply managers act quickly.

Labs get what is left

When gas is rationed, someone goes first. Phil Kornbluth, a helium consultant, told Scientific American in March that MRI might get everything they need because it's a medical application, and semiconductor chip manufacturers generally get a pretty high allocation. Everyone else shares the rest.

MRI sites are cushioned, not safe. A scanner holds its superconducting magnet near minus 269 C with liquid helium, and in March safety consultant Tobias Gilk warned that some scanners will go down. I found no October data on MRI outages. MRI took 15% of U.S. helium sales in 2025, and USGS says nitrogen-cooled superconductors are still in development.

The lab is the weak link. Joe Sachleben at the University of Chicago runs nuclear magnetic resonance machines used in work on cancer drugs and Alzheimer's treatments. Every couple of months he pours 100 liters of liquid helium onto the magnets to hold them at 452 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Asked about a workaround, he told 60 Minutes: No. Nothing else boils that low. His supplier has told him we'll give you 50% of what you used last year, and a backup supplier cannot guarantee any. He is deciding which machine to sacrifice and which to keep.

Some of the loudest calls for federal help come from people with a stake. Chris Bakker, CEO of exploration firm Avanti Helium, told the AP the U.S. could stay self-sufficient but needs investment in exploration; Cliff Cain, president of the Topaz Project explorer, calls the system a single critical point of failure. Both lead companies that would benefit from federal support. Supply shocks reach buyers with a lag, as the Oct. 17 look at pump prices showed for oil, and the lag is where Sachleben sits.

The notice was posted two days after it was signed. Its Federal Register publication is pending, Qatar's repair clock runs at least three years, and the 38 million cubic meters America sold abroad last year still carry no rule about who gets them.