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Press Release
Helium shortage challenges Las Vegas-based balloon business
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Michele Rothstein, owner of Las Vegas-based Balloons With A Twist and A to Z Party Planning, is already feeling the effect of the world-spanning helium shortage.
Helium, which besides filling balloons, cools magnets in MRI machines and factors in the making of liquid-crystal display screens and optical fibers, is a byproduct of natural gas. As The New York Times reported in December, a drop in natural gas prices has reduced the financial incentives for many overseas companies to produce helium. Also, as the British newspaper Independent U.K. suggested, helium-plant shutdowns in Algeria, Poland, and Australia in 2012 contributed to the shortage.
A congressional mandate has also crimped supplies. As The Wall Street Journal reported in April, the United States set up a national helium program in the 1920s and in the 1960s opened the Federal Helium Reserve, near Amarillo, Texas, which produces 60 million cubic meters of the gas a year. However, the Journal wrote, in 1996, with blimps long out of the picture as a tool for national defense and the reserve $1.4 billion in debt after paying drillers to extract helium from natural gas, Congress passed the Helium Privatization Act.
“The availability of helium is dwindling and pricing on helium tanks is going up,” Rothstein said. “This impacts our bottom line."
Rothstein, who started her balloon twisting, balloon decor and balloon entertainment company 19 years ago in Las Vegas, said the helium shortage is affecting companies valleywide. She knows this because her office receives calls almost daily from people who need to refill helium tanks.
A lawn-chair balloonist from Bend, Ore., told The Associated Press this month that the gas costs five times more now than it did in 2006.
With helium less affordable, Rothstein and her team are challenging themselves to do more work with air-filled balloons.
“Our decorators are doing more creative air-filled balloon structures, building balloons on framing, poles and bases so we can use air-filled balloons rather than helium,” she said. “We can pass those savings on to clients."
Rothstein said many gas companies are not taking on new clients and the helium shortage may render helium-filled balloons a relic, she said.
“Our children's children may not know what a helium-filled balloon looks like,” she said. “At some point, helium may be used only for necessities and not things like balloons.”
http://www.balloonswithatwist.com/ may be reached at (702) 242-8861 or by email [email protected]
Helium, which besides filling balloons, cools magnets in MRI machines and factors in the making of liquid-crystal display screens and optical fibers, is a byproduct of natural gas. As The New York Times reported in December, a drop in natural gas prices has reduced the financial incentives for many overseas companies to produce helium. Also, as the British newspaper Independent U.K. suggested, helium-plant shutdowns in Algeria, Poland, and Australia in 2012 contributed to the shortage.
A congressional mandate has also crimped supplies. As The Wall Street Journal reported in April, the United States set up a national helium program in the 1920s and in the 1960s opened the Federal Helium Reserve, near Amarillo, Texas, which produces 60 million cubic meters of the gas a year. However, the Journal wrote, in 1996, with blimps long out of the picture as a tool for national defense and the reserve $1.4 billion in debt after paying drillers to extract helium from natural gas, Congress passed the Helium Privatization Act.
“The availability of helium is dwindling and pricing on helium tanks is going up,” Rothstein said. “This impacts our bottom line."
Rothstein, who started her balloon twisting, balloon decor and balloon entertainment company 19 years ago in Las Vegas, said the helium shortage is affecting companies valleywide. She knows this because her office receives calls almost daily from people who need to refill helium tanks.
A lawn-chair balloonist from Bend, Ore., told The Associated Press this month that the gas costs five times more now than it did in 2006.
With helium less affordable, Rothstein and her team are challenging themselves to do more work with air-filled balloons.
“Our decorators are doing more creative air-filled balloon structures, building balloons on framing, poles and bases so we can use air-filled balloons rather than helium,” she said. “We can pass those savings on to clients."
Rothstein said many gas companies are not taking on new clients and the helium shortage may render helium-filled balloons a relic, she said.
“Our children's children may not know what a helium-filled balloon looks like,” she said. “At some point, helium may be used only for necessities and not things like balloons.”
http://www.balloonswithatwist.com/ may be reached at (702) 242-8861 or by email [email protected]