Helium is a critical component of many significant technologies that impact our lives daily, but the capacity of current and anticipated helium supply sources to meet future demand is highly questionable. Many circumstances have combined to produce a problematic scenario, beginning with the United States government's decision in 1996 to sell virtually all of its helium stockpile, which was held in a depleted natural gas field in Amarillo, Texas. For much of the last decade, this resulted in an increase in supply and artificially low pricing. Because this was the only site in the world to store helium until recently, all of the helium sold out of this reserve has already been spent.

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