China’s antimony export controls disrupt tungsten industry | Real Time Headlines

BEIJING – China’s latest export controls are unnerving insiders in the critical minerals industry, with some fearing Beijing will exploit its global supply chain dominance in unprecedented ways.

China’s Ministry of Commerce announced on Thursday Antimony Export Controls It will take effect on September 15th. Use antimony Bullets, nuclear weapons production, and lead-acid batteries. It can also strengthen other metals.

“Three months ago, no one would have thought they would be doing this,” Lewis Black, CEO of Canada’s Almonte Industries, said in a phone interview. “It’s pretty confrontational in that regard.” The company said it would spend at least $125 million to reopen a tungsten mine in South Korea later this year.

Tungsten is almost as hard as diamondand used in weapons, semiconductors and industrial cutting machines. Tungsten and antimony are both listed on the U.S. Critical Minerals List and are within 10 elements of each other on the periodic table.

“My department now believes this is closer to home than graphite,” Black said, referring to China’s previous export controls. Last year, Beijing, the world’s largest graphite producer, said it would enforce export licenses for key battery materials amid concerns about foreign scrutiny of its dominance.

“I can’t explain this move, and I think it upsets a lot of people in the industry, my clients, that they don’t have a backup plan, and China knows that very well. There hasn’t been a backup plan for 30 years,” he said. .

“There’s always been a balance… they’ve never been weaponized because they can create snowballs of upgrades,” he said.

China accounts for Accounting for 48% of global antimony ore production According to the U.S. Geological Survey’s latest annual report, no marketable antimony will be mined in the United States through 2023. The report said the United States has not mined tungsten commercially since 2015, and China dominates global tungsten supply.

Tony Adok, executive chairman of Tungsten Metal Group, said in a phone interview: “I think this is the beginning of export restrictions on some rare earths and minerals.” He said it was difficult for him to believe that China would only restrict antimony.

“Based on the way the (China Ministry of Commerce) statement was written, we extrapolated it to tungsten and other rare earths. That may not happen,” Haddock said, noting that “tungsten is probably the most economically important.

China’s Commerce Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. attempts to restrict China’s access to high-end semiconductors, followed by Beijing announcement Export controls on germanium and galliumtwo metals used in wafer manufacturing.

While tungsten is also used to make semiconductors, like antimony, this metal is also used in defense production.

“China’s tungsten production is declining, but tungsten is absolutely critical in military applications, far more so than antimony,” said Christopher Ecclestone, principal and mining strategist at Hallgarten & Company.

He expects China to impose export controls on tungsten by the end of the year, if not within a month or two.

“With rising tensions, there’s a bit of a scramble to secure the metal, and frankly we’re talking about the South China Sea or Taiwan, you want to have as much tungsten as possible,” Ecclestone said. “But you also want people on the other side to have as little tungsten as possible.”

The United States is already keen to reduce its dependence on Chinese tungsten.

Starting from 2026, the US REEShore Act Ban the use of Chinese tungsten in military equipment. This refers to the Restoring Essential Energy and Onshore Safe Holding of Rare Earths Act of 2022.

House June Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Communist Party of China Announcement of new working group On U.S. Critical Minerals Policy.

Last week, Ecclestone said, the antimony trading niche noticed that the U.S. was paying twice as much for the metal from Rotterdam as it was for delivery from Shanghai. He said antimony prices continued to rise even after the outbreak-related shipping disruptions ended.

“There is suspicion that the Pentagon has been restocking certain metals, particularly antimony, because it needs it to make munitions,” said Ecclestone, who founded the mining strategy firm in 2003.

The U.S. Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Markus Herrmann Chen, co-founder and managing director of China Macro Group, said in an email that China’s actions were more “targeting what it believed were infringements of its national interests.” “Retaliation.

He noted that China’s policymakers at the Third Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in July “proposed new policy goals to better coordinate the entire mineral value chain, which may reflect the increasing importance of “strategic mineral resources” in supplying commercial and geoeconomic interests. .

“We recognize that our 40 years of expertise in naturally occurring radioactive materials provides us with a competitive advantage in replicating China’s success in isolating multiple (rare earth elements) from low-cost and abundant resources. Monazite,” Chalmers said, referring to the minerals from which the desired metals can be extracted.

It is unclear whether China will fully implement the latest export controls.

“They don’t want to acknowledge that things could escalate,” Black said. “But I think China doesn’t want this to escalate either. The last thing you want is to create another villain at the beginning of the U.S. election. Let’s see in a week whether this is actually a policy.”