Helium and the Strait of Hormuz (opens in new tab)

OK, let’s talk helium today. A while back I wrote about the Haber-Bosch process for making ammonia (and thus making nitrogen fertilizer), and how that was already being impacted by the then fresh and new Iran war. Well here we are in the first week of May, and urea prices can best be described as “high and choppy”, jumping around (as does crude oil) on news of the war. Here’s the freight-on-board futures price for the Middle East, and if you’re a buyer in that market, it’s ugly. I mentioned i...