Helium fuels Miami crime lab, balloon business and more: It’s in short supply
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has worsened another helium shortage, forcing Miami-Dade’s crime lab to conserve supplies of the gas used to identify illegal drugs.
World events, including the war in Ukraine, have spurred a shortage of once-plentiful products in the United States, everything from pet food and poultry to microchips, new cars and the gasoline that powers them.
But supplies are shrinking and prices are skyrocketing for another less common gas, one that is vital to a surprisingly wide array of businesses, from the Miami-Dade crime and forensics labs to the South Florida balloon business.
A national shortage of helium has sparked talk of rationing across the nation and forced some scientific research labs to conserve their supplies. That includes the MiamiDade Police crime lab — which last week had to pay a staggering $1,800 per tank of helium — to run instruments to identify deadly drugs, and the Medical Examiner’s Office, which uses the gas to test the blood of the dead.
“I’ve been with the
Medical Examiner’s for almost 43 years, managing the lab for more than 30 of those years, and this has never happened,” said George Hime, the assistant director of toxicology.
The compressed gas powers much more. Helium is also used to cool MRI machines in hospitals, manufacture widely used semiconductors and help welders ply their trade.
It’s also inhaled from balloons by people to talk like a cartoon duck — including a chemistry podcast host to explain the ongoing helium market shortage. (Although harm is rare, doctors advise against it because it can send oxygen levels plummeting.)
Scarcity of the gas is not new — this year’s is known as the “helium shortage 4.0,” the latest in the past two decades. This month’s shortage is a confluence of shutdowns with several key global suppliers, plus the geopolitical ripples unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Helium is captured as a byproduct of natural gas drilling, and the United States’ helium reserve is located in Amarillo, Texas. Run by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the reserve normally pumps helium by pipeline from a giant cavern to private companies that have purchased the gas. But the feds shut down the facility last year because of unsafe conditions, and it remains closed “to address safety measures and for necessary maintenance,” the bureau said in a statement.
The bureau did not say when it would resume releasing helium.
“We as an industry have been trying to understand why this thing is not up and running yet,” said Rich Gottwald, the president of the Compressed Gas Association, which represents private helium companies and has been lobbying the U.S. Congress to step in. “All that helium down in the ground. Our members
can’t access what they own and that’s put a real crimp in the availability of helium around the states.”
Two plants in Qatar, another major helium producer, were shut down for maintenance in February and March, further crimping the global supply.
The industry had been expecting Russia’s fledgling gas plant in Siberia to eventually provide a huge chunk of the world’s helium. But fires at the Amur plant have stopped helium production, and it remains offline. The United States also wouldn’t benefit from Russian helium anyway, since sanctions were imposed because of the Ukraine invasion.
The invasion by Russia has had another effect. Algeria has redirected natural gas to Europe — which is desperate to ween itself off Russian oil — but is not producing the helium as a byproduct, according to Chemical & Engineering News’ Craig Bettenhausen.
Although Russian helium may not flow until 2023 or maybe 2024, the shortage could be eased if the Texas facility resumes operating soon. “The shortage should become less severe in the second half of the year,” said Phil Kornbluth, a New Jerseybased industry consultant who writes for the industry publication Gas World.
So for now, four of the world’s largest helium suppliers have begun rationing helium, Kornbluth said, prioritizing their customers in vital industries such as medical and defense.
And so far, hospitals and clinics haven’t seen much drop-off. Miami’s Jackson Health System uses helium for MRIs, and to mix with oxygen for patients who have difficulty breathing.
“We’ve confirmed with our suppliers that we are OK and should have enough supply for us,” said Jackson Health spokeswoman Lidia Amoretti.
But for less critical operations, like the crime lab, the supply issue came as a jolt.
The Miami-Dade crime lab, part of the Forensics Bureau, typically handles between 6,000 and 7,000 drug cases each year. The lab generally uses about a half-dozen 300-cubic-foot tanks each month, which used to cost about $74 per unit.
The tanks are connected via six lines that snake up one floor to the crime lab, where they are connected to machines known as gas chromatograph mass spectrometers. The colorless, odorless helium serves as a “carrier,” propelling a liquid substance sample being tested into the machine so its chemical components can be separated and identified.
But on April 9, a representative from a Texas company, NexAir, cited the Ukraine war in emailing the department with the bad news. “We will not be providing you helium until the shortage is over or at least more helium is allocated,” the sales manager wrote.
Melissa Darby, the lab manager, and Miami-Dade Police Cmdr. Stephanie Stoiloff immediately began reaching out to other suppliers. “We went through about 15 companies and only one replied,” Darby said.
That one company agreed to sell them 10 tanks — but each tank cost $1,800, nearly 25 times what the lab normally pays.
So far, the shortage hasn’t caused any significant delays in processing cases, said Darby.
“We haven’t seen a change — yet,” Darby said.
Still, the lab is generally only running three of its six machines at any given time, to help conserve the gas. In a pinch, hydrogen can be used to replace helium, though it’s much more flammable and dangerous. In other cases, scientists can go back to the old-school, if more time-consuming method of identifying a drug: using a microscope.
“As a result of this shortage, all laboratories throughout Florida, including the public laboratories, the DEA lab Miami and the MiamiDade County Medical Examiner Department, are conserving their use of helium,” Stoiloff wrote to the association.
Everyday consumers may see the impact elsewhere. The party balloon industry is also feeling deflated — it’s the lowest on the totem pole of helium priorities.
Monica Rodriguez, who runs Miami Party Balloons, usually has no problems finding helium to fill the colorful balloons that make up her arches and creative birthday arrangements. With a local supplier, she used to be able to fill up one of her four tanks for $150.
Now, her supplier can’t fill up all of her tanks — and just one cost her more than $200.
“I only have one full right now,” she said. “There is just not enough on the market.”
Lucas Bond, of Miami’s Bond Party Rental, uses 10 tanks a week, at $180 a pop. He’s used to the periodic shortages — so it was no surprise when his supplier called him recently to tell him that starting in May, the prices would jump to $240 per tank.
It’s a cost he’s unwilling to pass onto the customer. “It’s a luxury business. At $3 a balloon, you can’t really charge much more to the client,” Bond said. “It’s very frustrating. You just have to wait until the prices go down.”