Following Iwatani, Air Liquide Japan and Taiyo Nippon Sanso entered into negotiations to raise the price of helium by between 10% and 15% with effect from October. A markup of revision differs among the suppliers. For domestic sales, Air Liquide Japan is proposing 15% on the average, Taiyo Nippon Sanso about 10% and Air Water a little less than 15%.

Concerning helium for which Japan depend entirely on import, the delivery price of BLM in the US (one of the major exporters) exerts great influences to the domestic procurement cost.

The price from October 2017 is over 11% higher than that of last year, and the suppliers are explaining the rise pointing out the increase of procurement costs which forces them to enter into the negotiations.
　
The problem of cut links against Qatar by the Arabian countries in May remains unsolved, and the procurement cost of helium of Qatar origin is still rising accompanying the change of route to transport helium, the procurement of chartering ships and the increase in time for transportation.

Now that things have come to this way, a worry about tight supply of helium has shown up. A fire accident broke out in the purifying plant of the major supply source of the US, which has caused less supply of helium. Should the recovery be delayed, there would be a fear of tight supply over the world.