BBN

BREAKING: US industrial gas supplier Airgas declared a force majeure, telling a customer it would only meet up to 50% of their normal monthly helium demand amid the Iran War, per WSJ. Details include: 1. The world is facing a significant helium shortage amid the Strait of Hormuz's closure which has limited ~30% of global helium supply 2. Airgas also told the client that it would add a surcharge of $13.50 per hundred cubic feet above the contracted price 3. Helium supplies which are "critical for AI" have been "choked off," per WSJ 4. Hundreds of specialized cryogenic containers, each costing $1 million, are now stuck in the Middle East Global helium supply is at risk.

U.S. Department of Energy Announces Up to $500 Million for Critical Materials Processing. DOE’s Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation launched a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to expand domestic critical mineral processing, battery manufacturing, and recycling. Aims to strengthen U.S. supply chains for energy security and the clean-tech transition. energy.gov/articles/energ…

If President Trump is looking for a way to bring the confrontation with Iran to a close, the arguments to justify such a move are already in place: To bring the confrontation with Iran to a close, President Trump faces two pressing challenges: Iran’s nuclear program and the status of the Strait of Hormuz. 1. Based on current statements, the outlines of a potential exit narrative are already taking shape. On the nuclear issue, the central argument is increasingly straightforward: much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is deeply buried and hardened, making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to use it. 2. On the Strait of Hormuz, the logic runs differently. Here, the argument is that reopening is easy following significant U.S. pressure. In this sense, Washington could claim that it has already imposed substantial costs and shifted the strategic balance for any one seeks to open the Straits. It remains unclear what course of action President Trump will ultimately choose. A military option is still very much on the table. But what is already evident is that the rationale for declaring success is being prepared in advance: a narrative in which the United States achieved its objectives, even without fully resolving the nuclear issue or definitively securing freedom of navigation in the Gulf. #IranWar‌

We are delighted to share this news. Seeing the FOCUS trial commence is a thrill for our team at #AVCT. The work to bring this forward for patients is momentous. Everyone in the Company touched this program. Congratulations to the team! #FOCUSOnTheWin #HopeWithoutCompromise

Israel won't stop. Netanyahu framed this as existential from day one. An unnamed Israeli official confirmed no intention to scale back strikes before any talks So the US withdraws but Israel doesn't. Iran keeps its cause of war. Hormuz stays shut. Oil stays elevated. The US gets the headline and none of the relief at the pump

Trump basically saying Hormuz and getting your own oil is your problem now, not America’s issue #OOTT

Four consecutive weeks of outflows from gold ETFs. This will go down as one of the best opportunities to add to gold at historically oversold levels in my view. Bottoms are always a process, and I do believe we are in the middle of one. This was a great opportunity to revamp my portfolio and add to a few miners I’ve always wanted to own — now at 30–40% discounts. Easier said than done. You’re either ready to take advantage of volatility, or you get stuck in the narrative that gold is no longer a defensive asset because it leads liquidations. Nonsense. open.substack.com/pub/tavicosta/…

LNG DEMAND DESTRUCTION ALERT 🇻🇳🚨 A proposed Vietnam LNG power project is asking the government to switch to a renewables+battery plant, citing surging fuel prices linked to the Middle East conflict Vietnam was expected to be a high-growth LNG importer bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

“It’s definitely beyond the halfway point."??? The world economy cannot handle another half.

JUST IN: There are roughly 50,000 MRI machines operating worldwide. Each one requires liquid helium cooled to minus 269 degrees Celsius to keep its superconducting magnets functional. A single non-operational MRI eliminates 20 to 30 patient scans per day. Those are the scans that detect tumours before they metastasise, strokes before they kill, spinal injuries before they paralyse. The helium that makes those scans possible came, until 31 days ago, from Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility, which produced a third of the world’s supply as a byproduct of liquefied natural gas. Ras Laffan was struck by Iranian missiles on March 18. It declared force majeure. Fourteen percent of its helium capacity is permanently destroyed. Repairs will take three to five years. Helium prices have doubled. India’s hospitals are already reporting MRI cost spikes and scan delays. European facilities are rationing non-urgent diagnostics. Air Liquide has warned customers of unfulfilled orders. And 200 cryogenic containers holding 41,000 litres each are stranded in the Persian Gulf with 35 to 48 days before their cooling systems fail and the gas vents irreversibly into the atmosphere. Helium is the only element that escapes Earth’s gravity once released. It does not come back. Here is the connection that should stop every health minister, every defence secretary, and every AI executive in their tracks. The same helium that cools the MRI magnet scanning a child’s brain for a tumour in Mumbai also cools the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine printing the two-nanometre transistor in Hsinchu that powers the AI model selecting bombing targets over Isfahan. Hospitals and semiconductor fabs are now competing for the same shrinking pool of the same molecule at the same temperature. The war has created a zero-sum allocation between healing and killing, and the molecule does not care which one wins. TSMC holds 6.2 weeks of inventory and recycles 68 to 95 percent on site. Samsung holds six months but sources 65 percent from Qatar. Both are rationing toward AI and high-bandwidth memory, starving consumer chip production to keep the advanced nodes alive. Hospitals are nominally prioritised in allocation queues, but when a single TSMC fab consumes 500,000 cubic feet of helium per year and a trillion-dollar AI buildout depends on keeping those fabs running, the allocation queue is a polite fiction masking a brutal triage. Newer MRI machines use zero-boil-off technology, sealed systems holding as little as 0.7 litres of helium that never need refilling. In India, 3,500 of 5,000 machines already use this technology. But the legacy fleet, the machines in rural hospitals, developing nations, and underfunded health systems, still requires 1,500 to 2,000 litres per fill. Those are the machines that will go dark first. Those are the patients who will be diagnosed last. The geography of helium scarcity maps precisely onto the geography of healthcare inequality. The war’s casualties are not only soldiers and civilians in the strike zone. They include every patient whose scan was delayed because the helium that should have cooled their MRI machine is boiling off in a container drifting 57 kilometres northwest of Dubai. The body count of a chokepoint war does not end at the chokepoint. It extends to every hospital, every diagnostic centre, every oncology ward that depends on a noble gas extracted from natural gas that transits a 39-kilometre strait controlled by a navy that no longer exists but whose mines, drones, and shore batteries still function. The molecule does not distinguish between a magnet in a scanner and a magnet in a missile. It cools both to the same temperature. And today, there is not enough of it for both. Full deep dive analysis - open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

RT @AM231982: This is an historic moment. Someone, somewhere at a trail site in the US has just been dosed with 'The Beast' aka AVA6103.…

A globally significant moment for patients & #AVCT @avacta. "Targeting a potent topoisomerase I inhibitor specifically to the tumor, and thereby minimizing damage to healthy cells, potentially MARKS A SIGNIFICANT ADVANCE IN CANCER CARE" Co-Director, VCS (My caps).

@AdrianWard3 A large print in #STX and suddenly NT for decent amounts. The IP keeps progressing, and the business is now self-funding with acquisitions on its mind. There has been a keenness to defend these levels also. Have we now seen the worst of what the market can do to it? Let's see.

@AdrianWard3 #STX official confirmation now of the EMA extension down to 12 years old and a useful $500k milestone payment from partner Norgine. This addition helps drive pure royalty-based revenues from Europe so maximum profit. londonstockexchange.com/news-article/S…

The positive updates are coming thick and fast today. Next up #STX. "Reaching cash flow positivity is a significant milestone in the Company's history that allows us to continue to grow our business without the need for further external financing." "Positive operative cash flow of $1m" in Q4 is a fantastic result, which, alongside the significant growth in QoQ prescriptions (61,000 vs c. 41,000 in Q4 2024), sets them up brilliantly for 2026. Throw in the refinancing for new acquisitions, and again, we have a fantastic growth story ahead of us this year. I hold. londonstockexchange.com/news-article/S…

#KIST 216m mcap screens as a high‑growth E&P outlier: $190.9m revenue, 20.5% insider ownership, 82.8% EPS CAGR, and trading 87% below est. fair value. Revenue forecast +21.4% p.a. vs UK’s 4.5%, with profitability expected in 3yrs. Oman deal adds scale beyond last year’s 9k boepd.

I believe it is highly relevant to #KIST to see Oman's name appearing as a negotiator or bridge, but also excluded from the list of Gulf states calling on the US to push on with this war.

This is how Iran will manage the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Parliament's National Security Committee. Key points: - Enhanced security measures. - Vessel safety protocols. - Financial and fee regulations. - NO passage for US and Israeli ships. - Collaboration with Oman on drafting the legal framework. - No access for countries enforcing unilateral sanctions on Iran. If China gives the go ahead, THIS IS IT. No matter how Washington vociferates.

Preparation fire before ground operation The Iranian front observes a certain lull (if one can call it that). All attention focuses on preparations for a ground operation by the US Armed Forces. As of the end of the previous day, the amphibious assault group led by the USS Tripoli was located 900 km northwest of the Chagos Archipelago. While everything has devolved into mutual strikes, which have become routine (Americans together with Israel strike Iran, while Iranians respond with attacks on Persian Gulf countries and Israel), one can assess the efforts the Americans and Israelis invested in this operation. 🖍Since the start of the operation, coalition forces carried out over 2426 tactical aviation sorties. The count includes aircraft based specifically at airbases in the Middle East, that is, in Jordan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. 🚩The peak of strike activity fell on the first days of the war. In the first decade of March, there were values up to 202 sorties in a single day. It was during those days that Iranian territory came under fire practically everywhere. 🏳️By March 10, intensity declined. This was compounded by enormous ammunition expenditures that needed replenishment, as well as the realization that the operation was dragging on, since the ultimate objective had not been achieved. ❗️By late March, the number of tactical aviation sorties began to increase again. This is connected with American preparations for the ground phase of the operation. It is no coincidence that the main strike areas in recent days are the south and southwest of Iran, that is, the regions of potential landing.

We've just released the following announcement: Shield Therapeutics - Total Voting Rights Check out the full announcement and join in with the conversation at: shieldtherapeutics.com/announcements/… #STX

Some great insight on the #AVCT AVA6103 trial process and the potential speed with which initial and likely the most important data will be known.

#AVCT said Q1 for first patient dosing, and they have delivered on that timeline. The next few weeks should be very interesting. londonstockexchange.com/news-article/A…