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One screen answering: “if the dominant supplier halts, who can fill the gap, how fast, at what regulatory risk?” Replaces manual cross-referencing of the production table with the IPTM register.
If United States mining (43% of global) halts: 7 substitutes cover 100% of non-US capacity · fastest ramp 0-6mo (QA) · highest policy-risk: QA (score 0, 0 filings) · 1 of these (RU) sit under comprehensive Western sanctions and aren't a real option for a Western buyer regardless of the risk score.
Stage: Primary production (cryogenic He separation co-located with natural-gas processing; combined extraction-refining stage) · Year: 2025 · Source: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 (Feb 2026 release; 2025 data).
Post-removal HHI = 3,903 (high). Lead-time is a heuristic from share-of-stage (≥10% → 0-6mo brownfield · ≥2% → 6-12mo ramp · >0 → 12-24mo new line · 0 + supplier-directory present → 24-36mo greenfield). Policy-risk = Σ over last-24m helium filings issued by that country (severity × polarity-sign × 5y-linear recency). This measures a country's own export-restriction behaviour only — it is a separate axis from Western sanctions exposure (flagged below in red where it applies). A country with zero restrictive filings can still be sanctioned by the US/EU/UK and therefore not a real sourcing option.
Helium is the friendly-country exception in the critical-minerals layer — US + Qatar + Algeria + Australia + Poland + Canada combined ~93%; sanctions-exposed Russian share ~5%. There is no Chinese-refining-dominated chokepoint analog to graphite (90%+ CN refining), tungsten (85%+), antimony (78%), or manganese (90%). Single-stage entry because helium is exclusively produced as a co-product of natural-gas processing (or rare He-rich N₂-CO₂ wells in Saskatchewan + Tanzania) — there is no separable mining vs refining stage; the cryogenic gas-separation plant co-located with the LNG / gas-processing facility IS the production unit. Production HHI ~3,500 (high single-band) driven by US + Qatar combined ~82%. The binding fragility is **plant-level single-point-of-failure exposure**: ~80% of global output flows through ~12 plants. Any one plant outage propagates to merchant spot within 2-4 weeks and retail prices within 3-6 months — the market has experienced four "Helium Crises" in 25 years (1996, 2007, 2013, 2018-2020), each defined by 30-50% spot-price spikes triggered by plant-level outages, not country-level sanctions. Decade trajectory: US share fell 73% → 46% (denominator-driven; absolute US output ~70-75 mmcf/yr stable, share decline reflects Qatari + Russian + Canadian capacity ramps); Qatar 17% → 36% (Helium 2 ramp 2013 + Helium 3 online 2025 adding ~60 mmcf to country output); Russia 1% → 5% (Amur GPP ramp 2021-2025; October 2021 Amur fire incident removed ~5% of design capacity for ~6 months and is the canonical recent calibration event for single-plant supply fragility). The September 2021 BLM Cliffside divestment to Messer Group ($246M sale, ended BLM strategic-reserve operator role) raised structural spot helium prices ~30-40% 2021-2023. Helium uniquely vents irrecoverably to space when leaked — once helium escapes the atmosphere, Earth's gravity is too weak to retain it. Listed on US DOI 2022 + 2025, EU CRMA 2024 strategic, Japan METI 34-mineral stockpile list, Korea KORES 33-list, UK 2023 Refresh. China NDRC has co-funded Sichuan helium-extraction pilots since 2018; Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline negotiations include helium-byproduct offtake clauses with Russia. The most-watched 2025-2030 supply variable is Helium 3 (Qatar) full ramp + Tanzania Helium One Rukwa first production (2026-2028 window, primary-helium pattern) + Saskatchewan greenfield trajectory — combined incremental capacity ~80-100 mmcf/yr would shift the market toward structural surplus. ³He (helium-3, separate isotope from ⁴He) is structurally scarcer — most ³He comes from US weapons-tritium decay + Russian + Canadian state-controlled stockpiles; quantum-computing dilution-refrigerator demand growth could create the next acute ³He-specific tightness episode.