For two days from April 16 to 17, the International Gas Development Forum 2019 was held in Chongqing, China under the auspices of the Gas Ecosphere (headed by Bruce Ren) which is engaged to dispatch information and organize events for the industrial gas-related people in China.

In this fourth forum, there were lectures on helium and SPG gases for the Chinese people related to the industrial gas field. Gas Review was also invited to give a lecture on the market trend of helium in Japan and over the world and also the recent SPG market for the electronics field.

　Chongqing selected as the place for the forum at this time is quite a big inland city of three-hour flight from Shanghai, having a population of over 30 million with lined high-rise buildings in the mountainous area and lots of electronics-related or other industrial overseas companies.

　Regarding the supply/demand trend of helium of which demand is growing remarkably in the three representative requirements for semiconductor, optical fiber and MRI, much attention was paid locally, especially the current price-hike problem with the background of the tight supply condition and also the anxiety of future supply/demand.

In the lecture Gas Review spoke about helium of which demand is characteristic in its typical pattern seen in the most advanced countries, and described the transience of the Japanese market including the repeated experiences of tight supply and the future issue of supply conditions.

As for the other topics of helium, there were lectures about the new noteworthy source in Russia, the possibility of the African Tanzania source boasting a huge deposit apart from the natural gas origin and the water-soluble helium source in China. These lecture on helium sources of the next generation are assumed to aim for China which is the world-biggest demand area.

Albert Stromquist who is in charge of the Tanzanian Helium Project in Australian Noble Helium said, “In case the world demand of helium grows at a pace beyond the growth rate of economy, the existing helium source of the natural gas origin only will not be able to support the required supply power.” He appealed the effectiveness of Tanzanian helium source to China who would play the main role of the demand.

　In the lecture session for the electronics market on the second day, introduced the current situation of the SPG in Japan, and referred to the feature of the Japanese SPG producers who export over 60% of the domestic output and show their influential presence in the world SPG market.

　In China where the demand of semiconductor products is remarkably growing in the categories of the advanced automatic driving, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the communication in the fifth generation. Supply to cover such demand is 85% dependent on the procurement by import now in China. Therefore, the desire for a purely local producer instead of the foreign players is now so keen that the other lecturers also introduced silane and fluorine-based gases and chemical materials.