In good times, it’s a smooth near eight-hour flight from Doha to Singapore, while shipments by sea take around three weeks. Trade links between Gulf and the ‘Lion City’ are well-established, as GCC cities emulated Singapore’s pro-business model and effectively copied many of the ingredients for success, be it low-taxation or excellent infrastructure.
But now the conflict is forcing a recalibration across so many sectors, including the helium supply chain with LNG production curtailed at QatarEnergy’s Ras Laffan terminal.
Singapore may not be quite in Taiwan’s or Korea’s tech league, but it still produces around 10% of the world’s semiconductors and about 20% of global semiconductor manufacturing equipment, making it one of the most strategically important nodes in the global ecosystem.
To say it needs reliable helium supplies would be something of an understatement.
Singapore produces no domestic helium though, and its imports are embedded in broader ‘rare gas’ categories. This makes the city-state at risk of “high impact and high exposure” according to Ravi Krishnaswamy, Managing Director at Frost & Sullivan for Asia Pacific Region.
“Its helium requirement is effectively imported and externally concentrated,” he said.
