How Iran Crippled World’s Second-Largest Helium Producer

Seven countries produced all of the world’s commercially available helium in 2024.

Helium is among the critical minerals essential to economic and national security. It is used in medical research, semiconductor manufacturing, space exploration, and fibre optics.

Using the data from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025, the visualization above shows the top producers of this mineral in millions of cubic meters (m³).

Seven countries produced a combined 185 million cubic meters of helium as of 2024
Two of them (the United States at 81 million cubic meters and Qatar at 64 million cubic meters) accounted for 78.4% of everything.

One of those two has now been knocked offline.

QatarEnergy's Ras Laffan Industrial City, the world's largest liquefied natural gas export facility and the origin point of Qatar's entire 64 million cubic metre helium output, was first struck by an Iranian drone early in the conflict.

Iranian missiles then crippled the plant.

Qatar's 34.6% share of global helium supply (a third of everything the world produces) has been halted at a single industrial complex on the Qatari coast.