Long-term outlook uncertain
Photo by Beketoff at Shuttlestock
Curbs on a range of Chinese minor metal exports to the USA since December 2024 and February this year have sent minor metal markets into disarray. CRU looks at the interlay between market fundamentals and geopolitics.
Heightened geopolitical tensions have put minor metals trade into disarray casting uncertainty on their long term outlook Growing geopolitical tensions are impacting global commodity markets and especially so for minor metals, where small volume changes to trade flows can shift entire market dynamics.
Trade barriers on critical and minor metals have continued to rise in 2025. China initially targeted gallium and germanium by introducing export restrictions in August 2023. Domestic producers had to obtain export licenses from the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (MOFCOM) to export the metals out of China. Similar trade restrictions were introduced in September 2024 for antimony.
In December 2024, MOFCOM went one step further by prohibiting exports of gallium, germanium and antimony to the US. In February 2025, export restrictions were introduced on a suite of critical metals that included bismuth and tellurium. As geopolitical tensions between the US and China rise, we can expect the price rally on the impacted metals to continue.
While this has led to growing interest in these minor metals, investors must remain cautious as the price upswing is being driven by geopolitical tensions. In the event global trade barriers are watered down, prices will fall and normalise. If these tensions persist in the long run, we may see divergent price trends appear in global markets – domestic prices in China
would decline while rising elsewhere.
Supply of the impacted metals is concentrated in China
China’s dominance in critical metals supply is best evidenced in the gallium market, where more than 98% of mined gallium came from China in 2023. By 2030 that figure will drop marginally to 95%. Gallium supply is concentrated in China primarily because of two reasons:
·There is already excess gallium production capacity in China, disincentivising ex. China production. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), China has gallium production capacity of 1,000 tonnes gallium (t Ga), compared to 600 t Ga demand. Internal CRU capacity estimates are much higher than this.
The cost of gallium production in China is low compared to the rest of the world due to the use of Chinese resins in the production process. These resins play a key role in the production process, when extracting it from alumina, and are only produced in China. Alternative production processes that do not involve the use of these resins are
much more expensive.
Germanium is similar to gallium in respect to China with high production concentration, excess capacity (utilisation of 50- 60% in China) and Chinese germanium producers are some of the lowest cost in the world.
Meanwhile, China produces ~48% of global antimony, with the US dependent on Chinese material for around 60% of its antimony imports. Alternate sources include Tajikistan, Turkey, Myanmar and Bolivia. Russia, though a key antimony producer, is out the equation due to sanctions placed upon them. It must be noted that even before China’s curbed exports of antimony in September 2024 there was a global tightness in antimony supply.
Production figures for bismuth are uncertain, though figures from the USGS indicate China is responsible for approximately
80% of global supply. There are no supply sources to fully replace Chinese material. Bolivia, Peru, Chile produce very small amounts compared to China, while Japanese and South Korean material is based on long-term sale contracts. Supply from the latter two countries is also insignificant compared with China.
Export curbs have seen prices surge amid tight supply
Each export curb announcement led to the prices of the impacted metals rising sharply due to tightened supply in the global market, as traders and consumers sought to quickly build up stocks. Gallium and germanium prices have risen by ~70% and ~190%, respectively, since August 2023 when export restrictions were first announced. Current prices for antimony are $52,000-55,000 /t – up 380% since January 2024. More recently, bismuth prices have increased up to 650% since 1st January 2025.
The respective price uptrends are likely to be maintained as long as export curbs are maintained, as the small set of producers outside China have limited capacity with higher costs.
It is difficult to call a ceiling on how high prices can go given they have been driven by policy. The key downside risk to prices is the easing of export restrictions on these commodities.
Naturally, there is a rising interest in these metals from investors due to the high prices, though it is important to note while new capacity ex. China may be necessary, this can take years to come to market.
Global uncertainty on critical metal supply has led to stockpiling in some cases, which has fed the significant price rises observed since export restrictions were implemented. Many consumers and traders have considered strategic stockpiling as they look to respond to tight material availability for these metals – previously this was only done by niche sectors such as medical and defence. Those in the automotive, machinery and equipment sectors are now looking at how they can mitigate the impacts through stockpiling, thrifting, design changes, and other potential routes.
The long-term outlooks for minor metals remains uncertain as rising geopolitical tensions drive prices
As current high pricing for these metals is being driven by geopolitical tensions, the long-term outlook for prices and
supply remains uncertain. However, demand is almost certain to rise due to their role in new age technologies. With this
market context, across these critical minor minerals our forecasts for long-term pricing can be broadly put into two cases:
- Case 1: Prices are at or near their peaks in March 2025, and will fall as geopolitical tensions cool and trade realigns;
- Case 2: Trade restrictions continue to increase and prices reach even greater heights outside China. However, as exports are curtailed domestic prices in China may fall.
These are only two cases of many as rising uncertainty in long term market outlook of these metals provides us with multiple long term price forecasts. With this uncertainty, market due diligence requirements have increased for investments in capacity. The high criticality scores in national lists show that it is imperative for governments to have a stable supply chain of these metals, given they are used in strategic sectors such as defence, medical/pharmaceutical, energy
transition technologies and advanced electronics.
Given the risks associated with investing in this sector, government support will be needed to spur investments in critical minor metals production capacity.
By Pyush Goel
Consultant, CRU
