Tantalum Mining Shifted From Australia to Central Africa, 2000–2014

In 2000 Australia mined 45% of the world's tantalum; by 2014 Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) together mined nearly 70%. This U.S. Geological Survey fact sheet traces that shift, what drove it and what it means for a country that imports almost all the tantalum it uses.

Why tantalum matters

Tantalum stores and releases electrical energy, which makes it ideal for certain capacitors used throughout modern electronics; about 60% of world consumption goes to the electronics industry. Its ductility and resistance to corrosion suit chemical processing, and its high melting point and strength at high temperatures make it a key part of superalloys in aircraft engines.

The United States is a leading consumer, but its deposits are low grade and no tantalum has been mined there since 1959, so it relies almost entirely on imports. Mining it pays in only a few countries.

Three things make supply fragile:

• Conflict minerals. Sales of minerals including coltan (columbite-tantalite, a source of tantalum) are thought to have funded rebel groups accused of human rights abuses in the DRC and its neighbours. Section 1502 of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act requires companies using tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold ("3TG") to check whether they come from the DRC or bordering countries. The region supplies only about 2% of the world's mined tin, tungsten or gold, but it has become the largest source of mined tantalum.
• An opaque market. Tantalum concentrates are not traded on exchanges but through dealers and private contracts. There are no official prices, published prices probably do not reflect what is paid, and many producers, traders and users publish no data.
• Criticality. For these and other reasons, many consider tantalum a "critical" commodity.

The USGS National Minerals Information Center analyses supply chains like this one, from mine to first products. Its estimates cover tantalum in tantalum and tin concentrates from 15 countries; they leave out what is lost in processing, byproduct output from Malaysia, Russia and Thailand, old smelter slags, and undocumented production.

The shift

Figure 1: Mined tantalum in concentrates by country, 2000 (A) and 2014 (B). USGS.

Production averaged about 1,300 metric tons a year over 2000–2014. Four sets of events shaped it:

1. the dot-com boom, which pushed demand and prices up just before 2000, and its bust, which lingered into 2002;
2. the 2008–2009 global recession, which cut demand for most minerals;
3. armed conflict in Africa's Great Lakes Region, mainly the DRC and Rwanda, through much of the period;
4. conflict-minerals laws proposed and passed in Europe and the United States, including Dodd-Frank in 2010.

Figure 2: Mined tantalum by country, with the events that affected it, 2000–2014. USGS.

• 2000. About 1,100 metric tons were mined. Australia led with 45%, mostly from the Greenbushes and Wodgina mines, followed by Brazil (17%), Rwanda (12%) and the DRC (9%).
• 2000–2006. The DRC and Rwanda averaged 101 and 73 tons a year, together under 15% of the total.
• 2006–2009. Greenbushes began cutting output in 2006, and by 2009 both Australian mines were on care and maintenance, ending Australia's lead. Reported sources cite high hard-rock mining costs, the bankruptcy of the mines' owners, and cheaper concentrate arriving from central Africa. In 2007 the DRC reported 320 tons, nearly three times its earlier average, and Rwanda 170; together nearly 35% of the total. That largely made up for Australia's cuts and the end of releases from the U.S. National Defense Stockpile. The DRC peaked at 410 tons in 2008, when world output was nearly 1,800 tons.
• 2009. Australia and Brazil together fell to 18% of production, while the DRC (28%) and Rwanda (23%) reached 51%. Brazil stayed third, and the Australian mines did not return to their old output as the world recovered.
• 2013. Rwanda became the leading producer, with an estimated 600 tons, nearly half the total and up from 310 in 2012. Its government said exports, mostly to China, had risen "dramatically"; the rise may reflect privatised mining and new concessions for investors and artisanal cooperatives.
• 2014. The DRC and Rwanda produced nearly 70% of the total. The DRC fell to about 200 tons in 2013 and 2014, still about 17%.

Why costs and risk moved together

Australia's and Brazil's mines were modern and transparent, and seen as low risk, but Australia's hard-rock mines were expensive to run. Most African concentrate came from small, labour-intensive artisanal mines producing cheaply. Brazil held on because its concentrate comes mostly from cheap-to-work loose placer deposits.

Reports by the United Nations Group of Experts on the DRC and non-governmental organisations say armed groups seized many artisanal mines and trade routes to profit from 3TG minerals, feeding unrest. Ore from the DRC may have been smuggled into neighbouring countries and sold as theirs; some claim part of Rwanda's reported output came from conflict areas in North and South Kivu and passed through Rwanda's tagging system as conflict-free.

After 2011, reportedly, Western companies bought Great Lakes concentrate only if shown to be conflict-free, and Dodd-Frank is said to have raised production in DRC areas found to be conflict-free. Concentrate that could not be proven conflict-free could allegedly still be sold to Chinese or other buyers at a 30 to 60% discount.

Alternatives

• Brazil has been a steady, significant producer throughout, its supply easier to certify as conflict-free, and it might expand if Great Lakes supply were disrupted.
• Australia's idle mines could be restarted, given favourable economics, to replace much of a lost supply.
• Canada's Bernic Lake operation, the only North American tantalum mine to operate in the last 50 years, put its tantalum processing on care and maintenance in 2013, but its closeness to the United States gives it strategic value.

Less mined, and why

Output in 2014, nearly 1,200 tons, was well below the nearly 1,800 of 2008. Possible reasons: consumption had not recovered, the metal was being used more efficiently or replaced, producers drew down stocks, more was recycled, or undocumented output, some possibly from conflict areas, was entering the supply chain. The USGS has no data on those undocumented flows.

Summary

The United States depends heavily on imported tantalum, from concentrate to finished products, and relying on a few countries, some with high governance risk, raises the chance of disruption. The National Defense Stockpile, once a buffer, has shrunk sharply over the past decade as its tantalum was sold. Over the 15 years studied, mined tantalum moved from countries with low governance risk, mechanised mines, advanced processing and transparent supply chains to countries with higher governance risk, artisanal mining and far less transparent supply chains.

Sources

• Donald I. Bleiwas, John F. Papp and Thomas R. Yager, Shift in Global Tantalum Mine Production, 2000–2014, U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2015–3079. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/fs20153079
• Two photographs of artisanal mining in the original, courtesy of the former president of the Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center, are not reproduced here.