At present, the situation in Russia, Ukraine and the Middle East is tense and the scope of the conflict is bound to expand, so the importance of China's control of antimony exports, as a strategic resource with military uses and a large market for its export prospects, is obvious
Antimony is widely used in industrial and military fields and in the manufacture of batteries and photovoltaic equipment.
Based on current annual extraction, reserves from China are only enough for 16 years of production.
China is not only the country with the richest antimony reserves in the world, but also the world's largest producer and consumer of antimony.
The world's antimony resources are distributed mainly in the Pacific Rim Orogenic Belt, the Tethys-Himalayan Orogenic Belt and the Tianshan Orogenic Belt of Central Asia, of which the Pacific Orogenic Belt is the richest, accounting for more than 80 percent of the total antimony resources.
Since 2021, China's imports of antimony resources have increased year by year, and the degree of foreign dependence has exceeded 50%. In the past 10 years, China has increased the supervision of antimony resource production, with the Total Mine Control Index issued annually to manage the scale of antimony production. Therefore, China's antimony production has been on a downward trend. Since 2018, China's antimony production has dropped to about 60 percent of global production, to about 50 percent in the past two years.
Starting Sept. 15, controls on “exports of antimony and related products” will go into effect in China. Exports of gold and antimony smelting and separation technology will also be restricted.
On Aug. 15 this year, the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs announced that, starting Sept. 15, export controls will be imposed on antimony and related substances. The export controls will apply to six types of antimony-related products, including antimony ore, antimony metal and its products, antimony oxides, antimony organic compounds, antimony hydrides and indium antimonium. Exports of gold and antimony smelting and separation technology will also be restricted.
The reason for the export control is that antimony is China's dominant resource, with the largest reserves and production in the world. At the same time, antimony is a strategic resource, linked to national security and strategic interests. Today we will tell the story of antimony.
Antimony is used in a wide range of industrial and military applications, such as flame retardants, catalysts, semiconductors and other uses, like in the engines of ammunition, infrared missiles, nuclear weapons, night-vision equipment, and aircraft and rockets. In addition, antimony is used in the manufacture of batteries and photovoltaic equipment.
However, antimony is a kind of rare metal resources, the abundance in the earth's crust is only 0.2ppm, i.e. 0.2 parts per million. Globally, antimony resources are also relatively scarce, the current global antimony resource reserves of about 2.2 million tons.
The world's antimony resources are distributed mainly in the Pacific Rim Orogenic Belt, the Tethys-Himalayan Orogenic Belt and the Tianshan Orogenic Belt of Central Asia, of which the Pacific Orogenic Belt is the richest, accounting for more than 80 percent of the total antimony resources.
The top five countries in antimony reserves are China (640,000 tons), Russia (350,000 tons), Bolivia (310,000 tons), Kyrgyzstan (260,000 tons), and Myanmar (140,000 tons). It can be said that China is the richest country in the world in antimony resources, and 30% of the world's antimony is in China.
As many as 120 antimony-containing ores are known, but only 10 ores have industrial use value and contain more than 20% antimony.
In the world, industrial types of antimony ore are divided into single type of antimony, lead type of antimony, tungsten type of antimony gold and mercury type of antimony. More than 68% of antimony ore reserves in China are single type.
China's antimony mines are mainly distributed in Hunan, Guangxi, Tibet, Guizhou, Yunnan and other provinces. Among them, the tin mine in Lengshuijiang City, Hunan Province, is the world's largest mine, antimony annual production accounted for one-third of the country, known as “the world's antimony capital”.
Beijing controls the entire global antimony supply chain, from extraction to final processing.
In fact, China not only has rich antimony resources, but also a more complete industrial chain; the industrial chain has been gradually extended, the value added has been gradually increased, basically forming a more complete industrial system of extraction, separation, smelting, processing, trading and other products based mainly on antimony trioxide, antimony ethylene glycol, sodium antimonate, flame retardant masterbatch and so on.
Although China's antimony industry is leading the world, research and development of high-end products and production are still lagging behind. At present, the main products of Chinese antimony enterprises are mainly primary processed products, such as antimony metal and antimony oxides; the proportion of downstream processed products, especially high-purity antimony oxide and other processed products, is gradually increasing, but it is still necessary to strengthen technological innovation and increase the added value of products.
Although domestic reserves and production are the first in the world, Beijinghas paid a heavy environmental price for the production of antimony products. In particular, the city of Lengshuijiang, the antimony capital of the world, had caused severe environmental pollution and ecological damage, so the state cleaned up the industry in Lengshuijiang.
In March 2010, the city of Lengshuijiang initiated a series of reclamations of antimony-related enterprises in the tin mine area. The antimony-related enterprises, which contribute 150 million yuan in tax revenue annually but cause serious pollution, underwent comprehensive reclamation, while a number of unqualified enterprises were closed down in accordance with the law and only eight legal antimony smelting enterprises with an annual production capacity of more than 5,000 tons were retained and the backward equipment of the eight legal antimony smelting enterprises was eliminated.
On the environmental side, in recent years, after a series of adjustments, the production equipment of enterprises in the tin mine area has been upgraded, the production process has been improved, pollutant emissions have been significantly reduced, and pollution control capacity has been improved. Antimony-related enterprises gradually came out of the vicious cycle of high pollution, high energy consumption, low prices and competition and entered a positive development path.
At present, the global antimony major consumer countries (regions) are the United States, China, Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia. The main areas of antimony consumption are flame retardants, battery alloys, catalysts and glass clarifiers. Among them, flame retardants account for about 55% of the total antimony consumption.
So except China, most of these countries lack antimony resources and have to rely on Chinese antimony products. But China, as the most important antimony producer, does not hold the bargaining power.
Despite paying such a heavy environmental price, antimony and antimony products have not been able to sell at a good price.
2011 was the high point of antimony ore price, reaching 90,000 yuan/ton. 2012, affected by the slowdown of economic growth, antimony resource demand declined. Antimony prices gradually declined from a high level. By 2018, it dropped to 50,000 yuan/ton. Since then, the price has been low until 2021, when it began to grow.
Before 2021, the depth and difficulty of antimony mining in the country continued to increase, along with the gradual increase in labor costs and other related expenses, the comprehensive production cost of antimony ore continued to climb, once close to the production cost line.
A long-term solution to lead the way
Before 2017, China's antimony production accounted for about 90 percent of the world's. High-intensity mine development has led to resource depletion, and most of the production from large mines is more than half a century old, and some of them are also considered to be in crisis due to resource shortages.
In the past 10 years, China has increased the supervision of antimony resource production, with the Total Mine Control Index issued annually to manage the scale of antimony production. Therefore, China's antimony production has been on a downward trend. Since 2018, China's antimony production has dropped to about 60 percent of global production, to about 50 percent in the past two years.
Since 2021, China's imports of antimony resources have increased year by year, and the degree of foreign dependence has exceeded 50%.
Since 2021, China's imports of antimony resources have increased year by year, and the degree of foreign dependence has exceeded 50%. According to a comparison of storage and extraction, it appears that several countries with large resources have a significant gap with China, such as Russia, with reserves of 350,000 tons extracting 4,300 tons per year, and China with reserves of 640,000 tons per year but extracting 40,000 tons.
Based on current annual production, China's reserves are only enough for 16 years.
At present, the situation in Russia, Ukraine and the Middle East is tense and the scope of the conflict is bound to expand, so the importance of Beijing's control of antimony exports, as a strategic resource with military uses and a large market for its export prospects, is obvious.
At present, the situation in Russia, Ukraine and the Middle East is tense and the scope of the conflict is bound to expand, so the importance of Beijing's control of antimony exports, as a strategic resource with military uses and a large market for its export prospects, is obvious.
For these reasons, last August Beijing duqnue to impose additional controls on antimony exports.
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