The Iran war is not only disrupting the global energy market but is also threatening the world’s supply of helium and aluminum, key materials used in products such as semiconductor chips, medical equipment and other everyday goods.

Qatar, which accounts for roughly one-third of the world’s helium supply, stopped producing helium this month following Iranian strikes on two liquid natural gas (LNG) facilities owned by state-run QatarEnergy.

Helium is a byproduct of natural gas processing, and attacks on Qatar’s liquefied natural gas facilities mean it could take years to rebuild production lines. Earlier this month, QatarEnergy told Reuters that the attacks wiped out 17% of the country’s LNG export capacity, and that repairs could take three to five years. 

Those complications could add to the strains on the global economy beyond the impact of higher oil and gas prices, which so far have drawn the lion’s share of attention from consumers, businesses and economists. The helium shortage has largely been overlooked because the effects of oil supply constraints have been so acute and immediate, with the average price of gasoline on Tuesday hitting $4 a gallon for the first time since August 2022. 

“We were so focused on gas supply that we didn’t see the helium shortage,” Vidya Mani, a global supply chain expert and associate professor of business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, told CBS News.

Only a handful of countries produce helium, which means that a disruption from one of those nations can destabilize the global market. The United States is the biggest producer, accounting for 81 million cubic meters last year. Qatar, Algeria and Russia are the other major producers, but Russian supplies are banned under U.S. and European Union sanctions.

Semiconductors and helium

Because helium is highly effective at transferring heat, making it ideal for rapid cooling, it’s essential for manufacturing semiconductors. Chipmakers use it to cool wafers — the discs of silicon printed with tiny electronic circuits. 

Helium is used during the etching process, when material that’s been deposited on a wafer is scraped away to form transistor structures, said Jacob Feldgoise, an analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

“Helium is an essential component of semiconductor manufacturing, and a significant proportion of it comes from Gulf countries,” Mani said. “Imagine not having chips to power laptops, iPhones and small appliances? Everything with circuitry runs on one, and all of those will be hurt if we don’t get helium soon.”

The medical industry also relies on helium to cool superconducting magnets powering magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, machines. And the space industry uses helium to purge rocket fuel tanks, a demand that is expected to grow because of more frequent launches by companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Impact on iPhones, AI 

Mani said manufacturers that use helium tend to store no more than two months’ worth of supplies of the gas. If those resources start to run low, “You’re going to see a much wider impact,” she said. 

Helium suppliers are already telling their U.S.-based customers, including semiconductor chip and electronics manufacturers, to expect shortages and price hikes, industry experts said. 

“They are already receiving ‘force majeure’ and allocations letters,” Cliff Cain of Pulsar Helium, a helium exploration and development company, told CBS News. “The effects are already being felt.”

He added, “Everything from vehicle chips to iPhones will definitely be affected.”

Because there’s no way to boost supplies of helium in the near term, a global helium shortage will crimp chip manufacturing, he added. That could interfere with building out AI data centers and curtail companies’ investment plans, according to Oxford Economics. 

“Semiconductor manufacturers have already indicated that they will not be able to meet their 2030 manufacturing goals,” Cain said. “We have resources here, but it’s not going to make up for the 33% disruption globally.”

Yvette Connor, risk advisory leader at CohnReznick, a business advisory firm, said American AI companies’ growth could be blunted by a chip shortage related to helium constraints. “It could potentially slow their velocity, not their capability,” she told CBS News. 

Aluminum hits a 4-year high

A prolonged conflict in Iran could also lead to shortages of nitrogen and aluminum, potentially driving up food and packaging costs for U.S. consumers, according to supply chain experts.

Roughly 9% of the world’s aluminum supply is produced by Gulf countries, and local disruptions are already having an impact, according to Stephen Hare and Sebastian Tillet of Oxford Economics. Aluminum prices this week touched a four-year high.

“Disruptions in the region are reducing available supply, while rising energy costs are increasing production costs across the global cost curve. Together, this is tightening market conditions and pushing aluminum prices higher,” Hare and Tillet told CBS News. 

An aluminum shortage would have a direct impact on consumer goods packaging costs in the near term, Mani said. It’s also used extensively in the automobile and electronics sectors, which can “expect to see a crunch,” she said. 

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia’s online safety watchdog said Tuesday it was considering court action against Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube alleging they are not doing enough to keep Australian children younger than 16 off their platforms.

Experts say the Australian courts could decide what steps the platforms can reasonably be expected to take under the laws that took effect on Dec. 10 banning young children from holding accounts.

Julie Inman Grant, who is Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, on Tuesday released her first compliance report since those laws took effect demanding 10 platforms remove all Australian account-holders younger than 16.

While 5 million Australian accounts had been deactivated, a substantial number of Australian children continued to retain accounts, create new accounts and pass platforms’ age assurance systems, the report said.

Inman Grant said in a statement her office had “significant concerns about the compliance” of half of those 10 platforms. Her office was gathering evidence against the five that they had not taken “reasonable steps” to prevent young children holding accounts.

Courts could order fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to comply. eSafety would decide on whether to initiate court action against any platform by midyear.

Age-restricted platforms that aren’t under investigation are Reddit, X, Kick, Threads and Twitch.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said the five criticized platforms were deliberately not complying with Australian law.

“Social media platforms are choosing to do the absolute bare minimum because they want these laws to fail,” Wells told reporters.

“This is the world-leading law. We’re the first in the world to do it. Of course they don’t want these laws to work because they want that to be a chilling effect on the dozen countries that have come out since Dec. 10 to follow Australia’s step,” she added.

eSafety had identified “poor practices” such as platforms allowing unlimited attempts for a user to pass their age assurance methods and prompting the user to try to pass the age assurance method even after they declared themselves underage.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, told The Associated Press it was committed to complying with Australia’s social media ban. “We’ve also been clear that accurately determining age online is a challenge for the whole industry,” the statement said.

Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, said it has locked 450,000 accounts in compliance with the law and continued to lock more every day.

“Snapchat remains fully committed to implementing reasonable steps under the legislation and supporting its underlying goal of improving online safety for young Australians,” a Snap statement said.

TikTok declined to comment on Tuesday and Alphabet Inc., which owns YouTube and Google, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lisa Given, an information sciences expert at RMIT University in Melbourne, said she expected the courts will decide whether platforms have taken “reasonable steps” to exclude young children.

“If a tech company has said: look, we put in age assurance, we’ve done all these steps. That’s reasonable. Even though the aged assurance technologies are flawed, whose fault is that? Should they be held accountable for a piece of technology that is not 100% and likely not going to be 100% foolproof any time soon?” Given said.

“That’s really the crux of it: what the courts will deem reasonable,” she added.

Reddit has filed one of two constitutional challenges to the social media ban in the Australian High Court. The other was filed by Digital Freedom Project, a Sydney-based rights group that did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday..

Both suits claim the law is unconstitutional because it infringes on Australia’s implied freedom of political communication.

A prelimary hearing is set for May 21 when the court will set a date for oral arguments, Reddit said Tuesday.