The image shows crystals of the antimony mineral stibnite (antimony sulfide).
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BEIJING — China’s latest export controls have unsettled industry insiders on critical minerals, with some concerned that Beijing will leverage its dominance in the global supply chain in unprecedented ways.
China's Ministry of Commerce announced on Thursday that Antimony export controls It would come into force on September 15. Antimony is used In bullets, in the production of nuclear weapons and in lead-acid batteries. It can also reinforce other metals.
“Three months ago, there was no way [any] “You would have thought they would. It's pretty confrontational in that sense,” said Lewis Black, chief executive of Canada-based Almonty Industries, in a telephone interview. The company has said it is spending at least $125 million to reopen a tungsten mine in South Korea later this year.
Tungsten is nearly as hard as diamond and is used in weapons, semiconductors and industrial cutting machines. Both tungsten and antimony are on the U.S. list of critical minerals and are less than 10 elements away from each other on the periodic table.
“My industry now thinks this is coming much 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 permits for the crucial battery material amid scrutiny from foreign countries concerned about its dominance.
“I cannot explain this decision and I think that is what has puzzled many people in this sector, my clients, who do not have a plan B, something that China knows very well. It has not had one for 30 years,” he said.
“There's always been a balance… they were never used as weapons because they could create a snowball of escalation,” he said.
China represented 48% of the world's antimony mine production By 2023, the United States has not mined any marketable antimony, according to the latest annual report from the U.S. Geological Survey. The United States has not mined tungsten commercially since 2015, and China dominates the global tungsten supply, according to the report.
“I think it's the beginning of some export restrictions on a number of rare earths and minerals,” Tony Adock, chief executive of Tungsten Metals Group, said in a telephone interview. He added that he found it hard to believe China would simply restrict antimony.
“The way the [Chinese Commerce Ministry] “When the statement was written, we had extrapolated to tungsten and other rare earths. It may not happen,” Adock said, noting that “tungsten is probably the most economically important.”
China's Commerce Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Military importance of tungsten
The United States has attempted to restrict China's access to high-end semiconductors, after which Beijing announced export controls on germanium and gallium, two metals used in chip manufacturing.
Although tungsten is also used to make semiconductors, the metal, like antimony, is used in defense production.
“China has declining tungsten production, but tungsten is absolutely vital, much more so than antimony, in military applications,” said Christopher Ecclestone, director and mining strategist at Hallgarten & Company.
China is expected to implement tungsten export controls by the end of the year, or even in the next month or two.
“In a situation where there is a kind of race to get metals in case there is some kind of escalation of tensions, 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 the people on the other side to have as little tungsten as possible.”
The United States is already interested in reducing its dependence on China for tungsten.
Beginning in 2026, the U.S. REEShore Act Bans the use of Chinese tungsten in military equipment. This refers to the Restoring Essential Energy Reserves and Onshore Rare Earth Security Act of 2022.
The House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party in June announced a new working group on US policy on critical minerals.
Ecclestone said that last week, the niche market for antimony trading noticed that the U.S. price to buy the metal from Rotterdam was exponentially higher than the price for delivery from Shanghai. That was after antimony prices continued to rise even after pandemic-related shipping disruptions ended, he said.
“There is a suspicion that the Pentagon has been replenishing its stockpiles of certain metals, and most notably antimony, because it needs antimony for 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.
China is acting more in retaliation “against what it sees as an intrusion into its national interests,” Markus Herrmann Chen, co-founder and managing director of China Macro Group, said in an email.
He noted that the Third Plenary Meeting of China's policymakers in July “launched an entirely new policy objective of better coordinating the entire mineral value chain, likely reflecting the increased importance of the supply of 'strategic mineral resources' to both commercial and geo-economic interests.”
Emerging alternatives
As China seeks to secure its national security, companies in the United States and elsewhere are seeking to seize a nascent opportunity.
“Energy Fuels has been the largest supplier of uranium oxide to the United States for several years, supporting domestic nuclear energy production,” said Mark Chalmers, president and CEO of Colorado-based Energy Fuels, in a statement. He added that the company is building a rare earth product line in the United States.
“We recognized that our 40 years of experience working with naturally radioactive materials gives us a competitive advantage to duplicate China's success in separating multiple [rare earth elements] Low cost and abundant monazite“Chalmers said, referring to a mineral from which desired metals can be extracted.
It remains unclear whether China will go ahead with widespread implementation of the latest export controls.
“They don't want to acknowledge that this could escalate,” Black said. “But I don't think China wants this to escalate either. The last thing they want is to create another specter.” [at] The start of the US elections. In a week we will see if this is really a policy or not.”