No wonder the market has been so weak lately. It's not just the obvious logic of pair trading in crude oil; the hidden crisis also includes the helium supply bottleneck.
After the shutdown of Qatar's Ras Laffan, a key node in the global helium supply chain went offline—Qatar accounts for nearly one-third of global production, effectively cutting off a significant portion of the market's "supply flow." South Korea's reported dependence on Qatari helium imports is as high as 64.7%. Helium's role in the semiconductor production chain: high thermal conductivity, chemical inertness, and low molecular weight make it very difficult to substitute in wafer temperature control (especially back-side cooling) and some critical process environments. Once a shortage occurs, yield and stable production capacity are hit first, followed by forced reductions in output.
