Where does helium come from?

Most of the +3% change in world helium output in 2025 cannot be traced to any country. USGS's world total went from 184 to 190 million cubic meters between 2024 and 2025, a rise of 6 million cubic meters, while the seven countries with a rounded figure added up to 184 in 2024 and 185 in 2025, a rise of 1 (USGS MCS; our arithmetic). The other 5 million cubic meters, 2.6% of 2025 output, is the gap between USGS's rounded world total and its country rows. Because USGS rounds its total, the headline growth is mostly that gap, not output any country reported.

The largest producer is also a net exporter, yet its net exports are small beside Qatar's output. USGS reports US helium exports of 38 million cubic meters and imports of 8 in 2025, so net exports of 30 million cubic meters, and a net export position in every year from 2021 to 2025. Those net exports equal 37% of the 81 million cubic meters that USGS gives as US sales in 2025, and Qatar's 63 million cubic meters of 2025 production is more than twice them (our arithmetic on USGS MCS). The US figure is sales and includes helium extracted in Canada, while Qatar's is production, so the comparison shows scale only.

Two 2026 export measures fall on producers of very different size. Russia made 18 million cubic meters in 2025 (9.5% of the total), and a decree requires authorization for its helium exports outside the Eurasian Economic Union from 14 April 2026. China made 3 million cubic meters (1.6%), and its temporary export ban dates from July 2026 (see the export controls register). Neither measure shows in the 2025 table, which pre-dates both.

Helium is measured by volume, not weight. USGS publishes world production in million cubic meters, so every production and reserves figure on this page is in that unit. USGS reports the other rare gases (neon, krypton and xenon) in liters, and this page does not mix those in.

In 2025 United States produced 81 million cubic meters of helium, 43% of the 190 million cubic meters world total (USGS MCS). Qatar followed with 63 million cubic meters (33%), then Russia (9.5%), Algeria (5.8%) and Canada (3.2%). China and Poland each reported 3 million cubic meters. The top three account for 85% and the top five for 94%, from 7 countries with a rounded figure; USGS lists eight, with South Africa below half a unit.

Four cautions apply. First, the United States figure is sales of Grade-A and gaseous helium rather than a count of everything extracted, and USGS says it includes helium extracted in Canada and purified to Grade-A in the United States; USGS does not say whether Canada's own figure overlaps with it. Second, USGS marks every 2025 figure in the table as an estimate. Third, the seven countries with a rounded figure add up to slightly less than the world total, which USGS labels as rounded; the difference, 2.6% of the total, is not assigned to any country. USGS also lists South Africa at less than half a unit in 2025. Fourth, these figures were published in February 2026, before the Qatar disruption described below.

Reserves are reported for only five countries: United States (8,500 million cubic meters), Algeria (1,800 million cubic meters), Russia (1,700 million cubic meters), South Africa (400 million cubic meters) and Poland (24 million cubic meters). USGS gives Qatar's reserves only as "Large" and marks Canada, China and the world total as not available. The 12,424 million cubic meters that the reserves table adds up to is therefore a sum of five countries that leaves Qatar out, not a world total, and this page does not use it for shares or years of supply. USGS puts recoverable helium in identified US natural gas reservoirs at a mean of 8.49 billion cubic meters and identified resources outside the United States at 31.3 billion, with the largest deposits in Qatar (10.1 billion), Algeria (8.2), Russia (6.8), Canada (2.0) and China (1.1). See reserves versus resources for the difference.

This page has no trade table, because the international customs data this site uses cannot isolate helium. At the six-digit level of the Harmonized System helium has no line of its own: it falls under HS 2804.29, which also covers neon, krypton and xenon, so any export or import value for that code mixes several gases and cannot be read as helium. The US tariff schedule adds a ten-digit statistical number for helium (2804.29.0010), which is the basis of the USGS US figures below. This site therefore shows no helium trade ranking and does not estimate a helium share of that code. See HS codes for why a shared code defeats a trade table.

What can be said comes from USGS and concerns the United States only. The 2026 summary reports US helium exports of 38 million cubic meters in 2025 against imports of 8, and shows the United States as a net exporter in every year from 2021 to 2025. For the period 2021 to 2024 USGS lists the sources of US helium imports as Canada (47 percent), Qatar (28 percent), Algeria (10 percent), China (5 percent) and other countries (10 percent). USGS gives no world trade totals for helium, and this page does not construct any.

Josh Rooney of Falvey Insurance Group wrote in the newsletter of the International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) on 9 June 2026 that the Strait of Hormuz is the sole export route for Qatari helium. See producing, exporting and processing for how to read a production table without a trade table beside it.

This page shows no helium price series. Helium has no exchange benchmark, and this site has found no free public series for it. The only price USGS gives is an annual estimate: a base price for Grade-A helium of about $12 per cubic meter ($330 per thousand cubic feet) in 2025, not including free-on-board or other costs of moving the gas from producer to buyer, with producers posting surcharges on top. That is a 2025 estimate, not a current price.

How helium is sold explains why a single quote is thin. Air Products says in its annual report (Form 10-K) for the fiscal year ended 30 September 2025 that its helium sourcing agreements are medium to long term and carry take-if-tendered provisions, and that it sells refined helium as a merchant gas mainly under medium-term requirements contracts. USGS's base price leaves out transport costs and carries producer surcharges, so it is a starting point, not a delivered price.

The same filing says that supplier operating or transport problems and other changes in crude helium supply can affect helium pricing for its customers. In April 2026 Robert Lawrence of the Peterson Institute for International Economics wrote that after the Qatar shutdowns prices had surged and supply had tightened; this page quotes no 2026 price. Naming a company here is not investment advice.

Air Products describes helium as a by-product of gases extracted from underground reservoirs, mainly natural gas and carbon dioxide, and says its supply of crude helium depends largely on natural gas production by its suppliers. The Commission's 2023 critical raw materials study likewise calls helium a by-product, mainly of natural gas. USGS adds that companies explored for and developed helium deposits worldwide in 2025 and that some are not sourced from hydrocarbons.

Qatar is second in the production table. On 2 March 2026 QatarEnergy said that, because of military attacks on its facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City and Mesaieed Industrial City, it had ceased production of LNG and associated products (statement reported by MEED). The Peterson Institute's Robert Lawrence wrote on 21 April 2026 that the Ras Laffan complex produces helium as a by-product, that Qatar accounts for roughly a third of global supply, and that supply had tightened. Josh Rooney of Falvey Insurance Group wrote in the IUMI newsletter on 9 June 2026 that strikes at Ras Laffan had halted production there with no confirmed restart date. As of 9 October 2026 this page has found no QatarEnergy statement on helium output. Gasworld and Akap Energy reported in August 2026, citing industry sources, that the Helium 2 plant had partially restarted at roughly 25 percent of normal capacity, and Gasworld noted that QatarEnergy had not confirmed it. Bloomberg reported on 28 September 2026 that QatarEnergy had extended force majeure on LNG shipments through November. The Qatar figure in the table is a 2025 estimate that pre-dates the March 2026 attacks.

The Bureau of Land Management says the federal helium program began in 1925, and the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013 required BLM to dispose of the federal helium assets. BLM announced on 27 June 2024 that it had closed the sale of the Federal Helium System to Messer, and on 12 December 2024 that it had transferred $460 million of proceeds to the US Treasury. USGS's February 2026 summary lists the US government stockpile of helium as none.

MOFCOM and the customs administration issued Announcement 2026 No. 29 on 10 July 2026, imposing a temporary ban on helium exports from the date of publication and saying later adjustments would be announced separately. At a press conference on 16 July 2026 MOFCOM said China is a major helium importer and that the ban is meant to ensure domestic supply. This page found no adjustment or lifting as of 9 October 2026. China is listed in USGS's 2025 production table at 3 million cubic meters (1.6% of the total), so the ban does not change the 2025 figures above. See the export controls register.

Russia is third in the production table. As of 14 April 2026 the Moscow Times reported that Russia had introduced export controls on helium to countries outside the Eurasian Economic Union through the end of 2027. TASS reported that when President Putin launched the first stage of the Amur gas processing plant on 9 June 2021, its design allowed helium output of up to 60 million cubic meters a year. That is a design figure, not output. USGS reports that European Union and United States sanctions imposing an import ban on helium from Russia continued into 2025; it does not give a split of Russian output between plants.

Air Products says helium is generally sourced far from where it is sold, so it keeps inventory in ISO containers and in underground storage at Amarillo and Beaumont in Texas. USGS reports that a storage cavern came online at Beaumont in 2025 and that three locations in Texas store helium underground.

Helium is recovered from gas, not mined as a solid. It is separated from the gas stream of a field that contains it, and the usual field is a natural gas field. In Qatar, QatarEnergy LNG says the North Field holds only a trace of helium, estimated at 0.04 percent of the reservoir, and that the field's size means the helium available is large. In the United States the National Academies described in 2000 how the main helium-rich gas lay in the Hugoton-Panhandle field in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, the LaBarge field in Wyoming, and the federal Cliffside field near Amarillo.

The National Academies describe a sequence that removes impurities and heavier hydrocarbons and then applies cryogenic processing, which yields crude helium: helium typically at 50 to 70 percent, with nitrogen making up most of the rest and smaller amounts of argon, neon and hydrogen. USGS gives the current US grades: crude helium is 60 to 80 percent helium, gaseous helium is more than 98 percent, and Grade-A is 99.997 percent or more. In 2025 USGS counted nine US plants producing crude helium and five producing Grade-A helium.

Air Products says its helium is held in ISO containers and underground storage. The Federal Helium System that Messer bought in 2024 included a 423-mile crude helium pipeline.

USGS describes US use and gives no world split, so what follows is the US description for 2025, in decreasing order: analytical, engineering, laboratory, science and specialty gases (22 percent); controlled atmospheres, fiber optics and semiconductors (17 percent); lifting gas (17 percent); magnetic resonance imaging (15 percent); aerospace (9 percent); welding (8 percent); diving (5 percent); leak detection (5 percent); and other uses (2 percent).

The Commission's 2023 study describes helium as used in cryogenics and semiconductor manufacturing. USGS says nothing substitutes for helium in cryogenic applications below about -256 degrees Celsius (-429 degrees Fahrenheit). It lists substitutes for several other uses: nitrogen as the coolant in future superconducting scanners, hydrogen for some lighter-than-air work, argon and hydrogen for diving, and argon, helium and nitrogen in welding, where each can stand in for the others. Helium and the other rare gases can also replace one another in inert-atmosphere uses. USGS also says large-volume users seldom recycle helium, though closed-loop recycling was becoming more common.

The chain runs from a gas field to a processing plant that removes helium from the gas stream, to crude helium, to purification to a commercial grade, to storage or distribution by an industrial gas company, to the user. Because helium comes out where gas is processed, supply is tied to where those plants are: 85% of 2025 output came from three countries. See natural gas for the parent commodity.

The European Commission lists helium among the 34 critical raw materials on its critical raw materials page, so it is a critical mineral there; the glossary entry defines the term. The Commission's 2023 study says helium had been critical in 2017, was not critical in 2020 because of a small drop in economic importance, and returned in 2023 because economic importance rose; the study screened neon, krypton and xenon the same year and found none of them critical. The United States is different: the final 2025 List of Critical Minerals, published in the Federal Register on 7 November 2025, names 60 minerals, and helium is not among them. The notice does not mention helium, and this page found no source stating why, so it offers no reason.

QatarEnergy LNG says its two helium plants, one that started in 2005 and one in 2013, would supply roughly a quarter of world helium production with both at full capacity; USGS's 2025 estimate puts Qatar at 33% of the world total, and the two figures differ in basis and date.