Images of mobile devices at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) Museum of Innovation in Hsinchu, on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022.
I-Hwa Cheng | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Asian technology stocks fell on Thursday as Iran’s latest attacks on Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City and a surge in oil prices rattled investor sentiment, amplifying concerns over supply chain disruptions across the semiconductor industry.
Materials derived from Middle Eastern energy markets are used extensively in electronics manufacturing, from printed circuit boards to semiconductor process chemicals.
South Korea memory giants SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics fell 2.23% and 1.8% respectively. Seoul Semiconductor shares declined 2.53%.
Japan’s Advantest fell over 4%, while Tokyo Electron lost 1.99%. Taiwan’s TSMC was down 2.1%.
China’s ‘AI tigers’ MiniMax and Knowledge Atlas Technology, also known as Zhipu, declined 10% and 8%. The slide comes after a surge in Chinese artificial intelligence stocks following upbeat comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on the promise of AI agents and OpenClaw.
Hong Kong listed stocks of Alibaba slid 3.34%, while Tencent declined 6%.
“Recent market moves can almost entirely be attributed to the Middle East conflict and spiking oil prices, macro risks far outweigh company fundamentals for now,” said UBP’s senior equity advisor Vey-Sern Ling in an email to CNBC.
While the immediate concern centers on higher oil prices stoking inflation fears, analysts noted the deeper risk lies in second-order effects rippling through the semiconductor supply chain.
Helium supply
Missile attacks on QatarEnergy’s Ras Laffan Industrial City on Wednesday caused damage to one of the world’s most strategically important gas hubs, and are likely to raise concerns for global LNG and helium supply chains.
Helium is a key material for the semiconductor industry, with Qatar producing over a third of the world’s helium supply as a by-product of natural gas processing.
Ongoing disruptions of Qatar’s LNG facilities could threaten to further raise prices of helium for semiconductor companies, with no viable alternatives available.
On March 2, state energy giant QatarEnergy, the world’s second-largest LNG exporter, announced a production halt at its 77 million tons per annum (mtpa) facility and declared force majeure on LNG shipments.
“Qatar’s gas disruption is tightening the supply of helium, a natural gas byproduct used in semiconductor manufacturing and medical imaging,” analysts at Fitch Ratings wrote in a note to investors on Tuesday.
“Asia’s semiconductor supply chain faces rising tail risk from helium tightness as the Iran conflict drags on and Qatar’s natural gas disruption persists,” the analysts added.
Shelley Jang, director of Asia-Pacific corporate ratings at Fitch Ratings, told CNBC via email that disruptions at Ras Laffan could create further logistical delays and reduced availability.
Even if production were to restart, getting helium to market would face additional delays until entire logistics chains and shipping schedules are restored, she said.
Beyond helium, broader petrochemical supply chains are also under scrutiny.
The Gulf region anchors critical systems supporting hyperscale infrastructure growth, semiconductor manufacturing, and electronics production. Escalating tensions are disrupting high-tech supply chains, said Gartner semiconductor supply chain analyst Cori Masters.
“Worst case scenarios for semiconductor fab delays could lead to $1.5 to $3 billion in deferred revenues and additional downstream production impacts,” Masters wrote in a note to investors.
— CNBC’s Spencer Kimball contributed to this report.
