The Gas That Cannot Be Manufactured: China's Helium Ban and India's Blind Spot

Article summary

On 10 July 2026 China's Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs jointly issued a two-sentence notification — Announcement 2026/29 — imposing a temporary ban on exports of helium under HS code 2804.29.0010, effective immediately and with no stated end date. The trigger was the renewed conflict in West Asia: Iranian strikes on Qatar's Ras Laffan facilities crippled output from a supplier that accounts for roughly a third of global helium and more than half of China's imports, and Beijing moved to protect a domestic semiconductor industry that has become central to its AI ambitions. The paradox is that China is not a helium producer of consequence — it manufactures a very small share of world supply and imports more than 85 per cent of what it consumes — so the ban bites through re-exports, removing roughly a tenth of tradable supply from a market that has no substitute. Northeast Asian spot prices had already spiked to about $150–205 per thousand cubic feet in June 2026, close to double late-2025 levels. India, which has effectively no commercial helium production and imports nearly all of its requirement, is exposed across MRI scanners, fibre-optic manufacturing, rocket-tank pressurisation and its new semiconductor fabrication ambitions.