Image by Panksvatouny at Shuttlestock
Dear MMTA Members,
Welcome to the March Crucible. It has been a busy quarter marred by ill-health, but what felt like an endless winter is finally over, and days get longer and lighter now. The MMTA’s International Minor Metals Conference 2025 is back in Europe, this time in beautiful Lisbon, Portugal. We look forward to seeing you there!
This is a great time for our industry to meet to discuss market challenges, of which recent months have generated plenty, and new application prospects for our metals, many of which are designated as critical raw materials in the European Union. In this issue, don’t miss Benchmark Mineral Intelligence’s insight into the rare earth element (REE) lanthanum and its future in solid state batteries.
And Fastmarkets reports on Metlen’s plan to revive gallium production in mainland Europe, which was recognised as a Strategic Project by the European Commission just as this March 2025 issue went to press.
On guard!
In the bleak midwinter, the ferro-alloys industry was thrown a curveball In the shape of a European Commission safeguarding investigation into silicon- and manganese-based ferro-alloys and silicon metal, published just before Christmas holidays took European traders out of the market.
Launched in response to EU ferroalloy manufacturers’ concerns about rising imports, particularly from East and Central Asia, it came on the heels of a review launched in November into existing safeguards for steel that are due to expire next year. The UK, now outside the European Union, launched its own review at the same time into whether it should keep the steel safeguard measures, and decided to let them lapse. In terms of ferro-alloys covered by the investigation, the UK is a producer more than a consumer, and UK processors and traders were generally unfazed.
In mainland Europe, however, including in EEA countries that trade with the EU bloc, reaction was mixed and the investigation provokes concerns and set off preparations for some legal challenges. The MMTA as an international association does not take a position on regional investigations, however it has submitted a narrative response, setting out points about the process, which is published here. And Argus has gathered responses from the European ferro-alloys market, which it shares here.
Barriers and borders
If this now feels like a long time ago, it is because a week is a long time in politics. And if some new tariff barrier or non-tariff barrier came up on either side of the Pacific each month in 2024, with the new administration in the White House, barriers are appearing, (some then promptly disappearing), each week. Facing curbs on imports of high-tech chips and on its exports, China retaliated with export controls on gallium and germanium, which have both military and non-military uses, citing national security, and in December banned their export to the US. In the middle of this trade war, Europe might see a renaissance of its own gallium industry, Fastmarkets reports.
Heading further into 2025, we can expect the unexpected in geopolitics, both old rivalries deepening and alliances changing. In the space of two months, the new Trump administration in the US hiked tariffs on Chinese goods by 10% twice. More are rumoured to be looming.
In March the US administration implemented blanket 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium. And that is before we get to EV tariffs gathering pace and US tariff war that is increasingly becoming tit-fortat tariff with Mexico, Canada and the EU.
China meanwhile is playing its critical raw materials hand differently, with bureaucratic rather than tariff barriers. On 4 February China’s ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) announced a new export licensing requirement for certain tungsten, tellurium, bismuth. molybdenum and indium products, described as dualuse items, citing, as it had done with gallium and germanium export licensing, citing national security and non-proliferation. These include:
- Ammonium paratungstate (APT), tungsten oxides and carbides, tungsten metal and alloys, such as those alloyed with copper or silver, and W-nickel-iron alloys.
- Tellurium metal, including monocrystalline polycrystalline high-purity tellurium as well as
- Cadmium telluride, cadmium zinc telluride and cadmium mercury telluride
- Bismuth in every metallic form ingots, granules, powders etc), along with bismuth germanate (used in civil applications such as medical radiography), as well as some organic bismuth compounds
- Indium chemicals: indium phosphate, trimethylinium and triethylindium
- Molybdenum and molybdenum alloy powders up up to 50 micrometres in size, that MOFCOM stated could be used to manufacture missile components.
While the market figures out what to do with it, a market shortage, in heavily China-dependent bismuth and tellurium in particular was already felt, with prices rising fast.
Help from HFW
If tariffs are making your head spin, help is at hand. MMTA member HFW has published a handy Tariff Pack to help you navigate this topic.
Request your Tariff Pack free of charge from brian.perrott@hfw.com and molly.brown@hfw.com.
Meanwhile, enjoy this issue, and let our correspondent Tom Butcher guide you through metals in nuclear energy and Anthony Lipmann share tips on trading rare metals that they don’t teach you at business school.
