How rare-gas supply adapted to Russia’s war
Read more of our recent coverage of the Ukraine war The war in Ukraine has reconfigured global flows of oil and gas. Less visible has been its impact on another supply chain: that of the so-called rare gases—neon, krypton and xenon—which are used in everything from chipmaking to medicine to space propulsion. Russia and Ukraine have long been big suppliers, accounting for about 40-50% of the global supply of neon before the conflict, and 25-30% of xenon and krypton, according to John Raquet of Spiritus Consulting, an industrial-gas specialist.
At times, their share of the supply of neon has been as high as 70%. Hence the concern, after Russia’s invasion, about disturbance to chipmakers, which use neon in the lasers that etch circuit patterns onto silicon wafers, and in turn supply other industries. The Joint Research Centre, the European Commission’s scientific-advisory body, warned of “severe" disruption, and noted a shortage of neon could “substantially impact industrial supply chains reliant on semiconductors".
Worse, as the war began, the semiconductor industry was seeking to ramp up output to meet post-pandemic demand. A year later, however, it is clear that chaos has been avoided. What went right? Krypton, neon and xenon are by-products of air separation, an industrial process used in steelmaking to extract oxygen and nitrogen from the atmosphere.
This allows the recovery of leftover mixtures, from which the gases can be extracted at specialist purification facilities. In the 1980s the Soviet Union built air-separation plants at steel mills in Russia and Ukraine. Its aim was to produce gases for use in military lasers, to compete with America’s “Star Wars" programme.
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