Antimony prices have skyrocketed and hit record highs! Key strategic scarce reso

Antimony, along with rare earths, tungsten, and tin, is hailed as one of China's four strategic resources. Due to its reserve-to-production ratio being below 5, the scarcity characteristic of antimony is further highlighted.

The European Union has listed metallic antimony as one of the 14 mineral raw materials with supply shortages, and countries such as the United States and Japan, which are highly dependent on antimony imports, have already made strategic reserves.

In 2024, the price of antimony continued to rise and broke historical highs, mainly due to the continuous tension in market supply, among which the disruption of Russian ore imports has become the most significant supply disturbance factor at present.

Domestic antimony ore supply has also become further strained. According to statistics from SMM, after the second half of June this year, a large number of antimony smelting factories went out of production again, including several flagship large-scale domestic factories.

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Overall, the global production of mines continues to shrink, and the increase in new projects is also relatively limited. At the same time, with the continuous growth of global photovoltaic installations, this also makes the supply of the antimony industry more tense.

Antimony Industry Chain Overview

The raw materials of the antimony industry chain are various ores rich in antimony elements, such as stibnite, antimony sulfide, antimony bloom, and antimony ochre. Raw materials are selected and processed in the primary industry stage to transform into high-quality antimony ores, which are then further processed.

In 2023, the global distribution pattern of antimony ore resources is still dominated by China, Russia, and Bolivia. Domestically, due to the impact of domestic policy regulation, the decline in ore grade, and the increase in mining difficulty, the total amount of China's antimony ore resources and its proportion in the world have declined compared to previous years. This change also reflects the dynamic adjustment of the global antimony resource competition pattern.

The midstream deep processing industry in the antimony industry chain transforms antimony ores into various compounds or metal forms such as antimony trioxide, antimony sulfide, antimony alloys, and high-purity antimony through processes such as volatilization roasting and smelting.Antimony is often combined with halogen flame retardants for flame retardant treatment of plastics and textiles; lead-antimony alloys are mainly used in the manufacture of anode grids for lead-acid batteries.

Metals and compounds containing antimony can be further processed into fireproof coatings, batteries, glass clarifying agents, and other products, widely used in flame retardancy, alloy manufacturing, battery production, and other fields.

According to statistics, more than 80% of global antimony consumption is used for the production of flame retardants and lead-acid batteries, with flame retardants accounting for as high as 56%.

Competitive landscape and leading manufacturers in antimony market

The main manufacturers with a tiered layout in China include Hunan Gold, which is driven by gold and antimony, Huaxin Nonferrous, a leading enterprise in the field of tin and antimony resources, Huayu Mining, which has a continuous increase in production capacity, and Xingye Silver Tin, which focuses on the main business of resources.

Hunan Gold is one of the top ten gold-producing enterprises in China, as well as a leader in global antimony mining development and an important tungsten mining enterprise in China. The company has a high self-sufficiency rate of antimony resources, and the antimony concentrate produced is mainly derived from the gold-antimony associated ores of its subsidiary, Chenzhou Mining, in Hunan.

Huaxin Nonferrous is the only state-owned non-ferrous metal listed platform in Guangxi Province, with rich mineral resources and a clear expansion plan for its own mines. In addition, to solve the problem of internal competition within the group, the relevant assets of Huaxin Group will be gradually injected into the listed company platform. In 2023, the company's main mines, Tongkeng Mine and Gaofeng Mine, achieved ore production of 130.67 million tons and 30.20 million tons, respectively.

Since its establishment in 2002, Huayu Mining has been rooted in Tibet. The company has achieved business expansion through a series of successful acquisitions, such as 50% of the shares in Tajikistan's Talco Gold Industry, 70% of the shares in Ethiopia's Tigray Resources, and 40% of the shares in Guizhou Asia Pacific Mining. Currently, the company's controllable antimony resource volume has reached 434,600 tons of metal. #Nonferrous metals #Antimony #Minor metals #Finance

Xingye Silver Tin is based in Inner Mongolia and focuses on the main business of resources. The silver-lead concentrate and silver-copper concentrate produced by the company contain antimony elements, giving it a significant advantage in antimony resources. According to public information, by the end of 2023, the antimony metal resource volume within the mining license scope of Xingye Silver Tin's subsidiary, Yinman Mining, has reached 184,704.69 tons, which ranks relatively high in China.