Qatar's helium tap closed in March. Israel's 42 MRI scanners run on what's still in the tanks.
Liquid helium cools every MRI magnet (every machine that scans a knee or a brain inside an Israeli hospital). On 2 March 2026, Iranian missile and drone strikes on Qatar's Ras Laffan gas complex forced QatarEnergy to declare force majeure — the legal escape clause that lets a seller stop delivering when something outside its control breaks the contract. Helium is a by-product of liquefied natural gas, so the helium output stopped with the gas. Qatar supplies roughly a third of the world's liquid helium. Israel has 42 scanners for about ten million people — 5.18 per million against an OECD average of 15.42 — and runs the fleet 23 hours a day.
01The pain
A radiology director in Jerusalem watches the scanner clock the way a taxi driver watches the meter. The MRI is on 23 hours a day. Inside its bore sits a superconducting magnet (a coil with no electrical resistance) cooled by about 1,500 litres of liquid helium that boils off whether the machine is scanning or idle.1
On 2 March 2026, Iranian missile and drone strikes hit Qatar's Ras Laffan gas complex. QatarEnergy declared force majeure on its liquefied natural gas. Helium is a by-product of gas liquefaction, so the helium stopped with the gas. Qatar supplies a third of the world's liquid helium, and Fitch (the credit-rating agency) says prices have doubled since February 2026.1 Prof. Yaakov Sosna, head of imaging at Hadassah and chair of the Israeli Radiologists Association, told Ynet the country runs its fleet three shifts a day.2 Refill helium is now the binding constraint.3
The structural fix is a sealed helium-free magnet that locks a small amount of helium inside, never needing a refill. Prof. Eli Konen, head of imaging at Sheba Medical Center (Israel's largest hospital), told the trade press Sheba was first in the country to install one.4 A scanner swap costs $1.5–2 million and needs work to remove the quench pipe — the safety vent that releases helium if the magnet quenches. Most Israeli imaging centres cannot fund the swap from cash flow.5
Further reading
- 1 Al Jazeera Economy — long-form on the 2 March 2026 strikes on Qatar's Ras Laffan complex, the QatarEnergy force-majeure declaration on liquefied natural gas, the knock-on shutdown of helium output (Qatar supplies roughly a third of the world's liquid helium because helium is a by-product of gas liquefaction), and Fitch's note that helium prices have doubled since February 2026: aljazeera.com
- 2 Ynet Health — Hebrew long-form interview with Prof. Yaakov Sosna (head of imaging at Hadassah; chair of the Israeli Radiologists Association) on the structural overuse of the Israeli MRI fleet ("it is like a taxi that works 23 hours a day") and the equipment-wear consequence of running three shifts on machines designed for one: ynet.co.il
- 3 doctorsonly.co.il (Israeli physicians' professional site) — Hebrew piece warning that a global helium shortage may shut down Israeli MRI machines, with the Health Ministry's OECD per-capita ranking showing Israel near the bottom of the table at 5.18 scanners per million against an OECD average of 15.42: publichealth.doctorsonly.co.il
- 4 Technonet (Israeli medical-tech trade press) — Hebrew piece on the first Israeli installation of a sealed helium-free MRI magnet at Sheba Medical Center, quoting Prof. Eli Konen (head of the Sheba imaging department) on adopting the technology ahead of the rest of the country: technonet.co.il
- 5 doctorsonly.co.il — Hebrew piece from April 2025 documenting the Health Ministry's instruction to "go slow on MRI referrals" because of the structural fleet shortage, ahead of the supply shock that arrived eleven months later: publichealth.doctorsonly.co.il
02Who solves this today
Two global vendors with sealed helium-free or helium-independent MRI magnets on the market — the only structural fix to refill dependency. Both have product pages that concretely describe the mechanism this page is about, and both are already installed in Israeli hospitals. The Israeli operator opportunity is the installer-and-service layer underneath them — the 10-15-person cryogenic crew that scopes, retrofits, plumbs and services these systems site by site. Inclusion is not endorsement; it is a record of who currently markets a product page that matches this pain.
Inclusion here is not endorsement. We list companies that publicly market themselves as solving this pain on a product page we have read. We do not vouch for results, pricing, fit, or contract terms.
Listed companies — manage your entry. If you are one of the providers above and anything here is wrong, missing, or out of date — or you'd rather not be listed — let us know. Removal is processed within 24 hours; corrections within 7 business days. We do not contact listed companies first; we publish what your own public marketing claims and respond when you reach out. Email contact@aikraft.com.
Operators discussing this
Israeli radiologists and imaging-unit chiefs discuss operational pain inside closed channels — Israeli Radiologists Association members' lists, hospital-network internal chats, members-only WhatsApp groups of the Society of Medical Physicists. The named voices on this page come from the Israeli professional press and trade outlets, where the same operators speak on the record.
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«ללא הליום, יצטרכו לכבות את מכשירי ה-MRI. מחירי ההליום עולים בקצב מדאיג — אולי אף עד 30%.»
"Without helium, MRI machines will have to be shut down. Helium prices are rising at an alarming rate — possibly by as much as 30%." — doctorsonly.co.il (Israeli physicians' professional site), warning posted four years before the Qatar supply shock arrived in March 2026.
doctorsonly.co.il — "Concern: a global helium shortage may shut down MRI machines" — Israeli physicians' professional site; the same channel has posted on the MRI-supply pain repeatedly across 2015 → 2025 (waiting-list crisis, OECD-bottom ranking, helium shortage warnings, technician-shortage forced shutdowns, "go slow on MRI referrals").
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«זה כמו מונית שעובדת 23 שעות ביממה. יש מדינות שעובדות משמרת אחת בלבד, אנחנו נדרשים לשלוש, מה שגורם לבלאי מהיר יותר של הציוד.»
"It is like a taxi that works 23 hours a day. There are countries that run only one shift; we are forced to run three, which causes the equipment to wear out faster." — Prof. Yaakov Sosna, head of imaging at Hadassah (a major teaching hospital in Jerusalem) and chair of the Israeli Radiologists Association.
Ynet Health — long-form on the Israeli MRI fleet shortage and the three-shift overrun — named-operator voice on the record on Israel's largest news platform.
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