I Love This Shop Delacombe manager Narelle Dopper was forced to put a post on social media over the weekend explaining the global helium shortage after "mouthy" customers abused her junior staff for a situation well out of their control.

"Customers please be advised that the helium shortage is global and out of our control. Please don't abuse our staff, thank you," Ms Dopper wrote on social media.

Ms Dopper made the decision last week to only use her limited supply of helium to fill existing orders but walk-in customers could still get balloon towers, arrangements and other decorations over the weekend.

"The problems with helium have been ongoing for a couple of years now but it's got worse recently and it's not going to change in a hurry," she said.

"We have been unable to get a regular supply of helium like we would normally so as a result last week we had to put a halt on walk-in orders so we could fulfill pre-ordered balloons."

Ms Dopper and many other balloon suppliers in Ballarat are facing severe helium shortages resulting from supply pressures overseas and Ms Dopper is unsure when they will get any more supply.

One Ballarat balloon business reported the cost of a bottle of helium had risen 65 per cent in recent months.

But it's not just balloon artists feeling the helium shortage, with the gas also used in medical settings for MRI and other imaging machines, in the production of electronic chips for mobile phones and computers, in welding, in scientific research and as a cooling agent in some scientific devices.

Because helium results from the decay of radioactive rocks such as uranium, which makes its way in to natural gas reserves, it is only produced in a limited number of countries including the US and Russia and several events including the COVID pandemic, war in the Ukraine and several shutdowns have left the gas in short supply around the world.

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Federation University chemical expert Associate Professor Vincent Verheyen said Australia's helium was mostly imported, although some is produced at a plant in Darwin.

"As radioactive rocks break down in the ground they release helium as an element, which gets trapped in natural gas reservoirs ... and when we exploit those with gas wells we bring to the surface natural gas and helium," he said.

"The big producers are Russia with their natural gas supply although the Ukraine war has stopped exports from Russia, and the US who have issues with supply although they can release helium because they have strategic reserves," he said.

"Helium is made by natural radioactive decay so there are limited places on earth where there is enough in natural gas to bother collecting, it's a business case whether to extract and purify it ... but I think the world will come around and I think we need to have a diverse supply of these things."

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