An entirely new oil disruption
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
An entirely new oil supply disruption. From Marketplace, I'm Sabri Beneshour, in for David Brancaccio. The latest in the Iran war. Iran says U.S. demands are, quote, excessive and illogical. The fighting continues, and oil prices continue their climb. Brent crude is up 15% in the week since President Trump claimed the U.S. and Iran were talking, something Iran continues to deny. Brent crude is now at $115 a barrel, and some of that is down to new potential disruptions to oil supply. Marketplace's Nova Sappho has that.
Yemen's Houthi rebel group, which is backed by Iran, over the weekend fired at Israel for the first time since the conflict started. This is significant in that the group has previously caused trouble through a different global shipping choke point called the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which essentially connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. Saudi Arabia has been diverting some of its oil shipments to that route via an east-west pipeline that now carries about 4.5 to 5 million barrels of oil per day. If the Houthis once again fire at ships crossing the Red Sea Passage, those barrels would have to find another route out of Saudi Arabia, potentially further constraining the global oil supply. That could lift prices even higher than they are now.
How are current geopolitical conflicts affecting oil prices?
I'm Novosafo for Marketplace.
Buried in the ground, along with natural gas, are small amounts of helium. It is extracted and purified along with the natural gas, and a third of the world's supply comes from Qatar and through the Strait of Hormuz. With that supply cut off, shortages are looming for the many industries that need helium. Marketplace's Kaylee Wells reports.
Nick Fitske orders about $6,000 of liquid helium every three months. He's the director of the magnetic resonance facility at Mississippi State University. And he needs the helium because it's extremely cold, as in 450 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
Helium is used basically to keep the superconducting coils at the temperature where they can be superconducting. And if they rise above that temperature, then your MRI no longer works.
Semiconductor chip makers need helium too, and it's produced as a byproduct.
It's usually associated with places where they can extract large amounts of natural gas.
And because only a few places do that?
That's why we have this bottleneck right now.
And there's a reason we're only feeling the bottleneck now, about four weeks into the war.
What is the significance of the helium supply shortage?
It takes about a month to get helium to its destinations. Maura Garvey, who runs Intelligas Consulting, says restarting production is going to be difficult, even if the Strait reopens today. It's going to take them a few months to get everything back up to speed. That's not going to happen until sometime between June and August. Garvey says the helium in storage can hold us over until then. I'm Kaylee Wells for Marketplace.
Every Monday, my colleague David Brancaccio has been speaking with experts focused on mitigating the existential threats that our world faces. Today, a conversation with Sonia Amadei, a professor at Helsinki University and the director of the Center for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. Here's David.
I appreciate some of the challenges that the center studies.
How does helium impact industries like healthcare and technology?
Nuclear climate, bioweapons, biomistakes, unbridled artificial intelligence. I mean, we have the means to destroy civilization, if not the human race now. How do you frame the work that you do at the center?
We've always had that idea that we analyze existential risks. Those are the ones that would threaten all of human civilization, where there might not be even a start over for the human species, as well global catastrophic risk, which means, well, maybe something like 90% of people would be killed in some kind of a mass event. But what we really are trying to add to that now is to mitigate existential risk so that we're action-oriented and not only publishing nice research papers, we're looking for ways to mitigate.
Yeah, I was struck by a statement in some of the center's materials that among the things you try to do is convene unexpected alliances to mitigate catastrophe.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–1:21
2
How are current geopolitical conflicts affecting oil prices?
1:21–2:29
3
What is the significance of the helium supply shortage?
2:29–3:38
4
How does helium impact industries like healthcare and technology?
3:38–6:08
5
What existential risks are being studied at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk?
6:08–6:25