By Heekyong Yang and Hyunjoo Jin<\/p>\n
SEOUL, March 31 (Reuters) – South Korea has sufficient helium stocks until at least June, two sources said, while the industry minister ruled \u200cout any first-half supply disruptions, allaying worries over the Iran war’s impact on supplies \u200cof the gas crucial for chipmaking.<\/p>\n
Prices of helium, a by-product of natural gas processing, have risen sharply after the U.S.-Israel \u200bwar on Iran disrupted such operations in Qatar, the world’s largest supplier of liquified natural gas (LNG).<\/p>\n
But South Korea, home to some of the world’s largest chipmakers, including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, has enough helium inventory to ride out the first half, a government official told Reuters.<\/p>\n
The companies are also \u200cpaying premiums to secure inventory, mainly \u2060from top producer the United States, he said, adding, “Price aside, securing the stock right now is the top priority.”<\/p>\n
The government official and the second source, \u2060employed by a helium supplier, declined to be identified as they were not permitted to speak to the media.<\/p>\n
Both Samsung and SK declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Disruptions in helium supply were unlikely during the first half, Industry \u200bMinister Kim \u200bJung-kwan told President Lee Jae Myung during a cabinet \u200bmeeting on Tuesday, but did not \u200celaborate.<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which supplies roughly two-thirds of the world’s memory chips, have four to six months worth of helium inventory, the second source, at a supplier of helium to Samsung, told Reuters.<\/p>\n
The supplier sources helium from both the United States and Qatar, cushioning the impact of disruption in the latter, he added.<\/p>\n
Qatar, which produces nearly a third of world supply, ranks second \u200cafter the United States. Iranian attacks on the Gulf \u200bstate’s gas facilities have forced QatarEnergy to declare force \u200bmajeure to customers.<\/p>\n
Last week Taiwan, another key \u200bchipmaking base, said its helium supplies were stable. However, some companies in \u200cthe chip making supply chain have said some \u200bimpact was starting to \u200bbe felt on production.<\/p>\n
Helium and bromine were among the key semiconductor manufacturing materials at risk of supply disruptions from a prolonged Iran conflict, Samsung and business groups told lawmakers \u200bthis month, besides higher energy costs.<\/p>\n
SK \u200cGroup Chairman Chey Tae-won also blamed Middle East tension for costlier energy that \u200bpushed the group to seek out other energy sources.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Hyunjoo \u200bJin; Editing by Brenda Goh and Clarence Fernandez)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Heekyong Yang and Hyunjoo Jin SEOUL, March 31 (Reuters) – South Korea has sufficient helium stocks until…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,126950,176997,85,87,46,161047,176996,1823,349,71979,11471,176998],"class_list":{"0":"post-367245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-energy-sources","10":"tag-helium-supply","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-liquified-natural-gas","15":"tag-natural-gas-processing","16":"tag-qatar","17":"tag-samsung-electronics","18":"tag-sk-hynix","19":"tag-south-korea","20":"tag-world-supply"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}