New Helium allocation to campus 

The University of California has received Force Majeure letters from industrial gas suppliers Linde (Praxair) and Airgas with notification that they will be placing academic campuses on allocation for helium products.

Airgas has reduced allocation to campus customers of all helium products to 65% of last year’s use. Linde’s allocation has been reduced to 50% of last year’s use.

Both companies expect the reduced allocation to continue until plants can fully resume normal operations at the end of the calendar year.  Potentially, supply may not return to 100% until 2023. It is recommended that researchers reduce the use of helium products or work with their supplier on alternatives to helium when possible.

The main causes for the allocation reduction are:

• An outage of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) crude helium enrichment unit,
• Russia’s Amur helium plant being shut down for upgrades, and,
• An explosion at natural gas plants that feed the helium plants that will delay Amur production.

Matheson products have not been impacted, and Matheson is taking new customers using a departmental quote with a purchase order for cylinders of helium gas products. Please cite agreement A25824 on your Requisition document in the Kuali Financial System (KFS) for Liquid Helium orders to Matheson.

Please reach out to your supplier or strategicsourcing@ucdavis.edu if you are experiencing a helium emergency. We will continue to update you as more information becomes available.