Tantalum market uncertainty as serious shortages lTantalum market uncertainty as serious shortages loom
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The western world could be facing a severe shortage of tantalum over the next few years according to a recent study from Roskill Information Services in the UK.
Author: Lawrence Williams
Posted: Wednesday , 23 Sep 2009
LONDON -
According to a new special study report from UK metals research consultancy, Roskill Information Services, there are fears in the tantalum market that serious shortages are looming. Weak recent demand has kept prices low. As a consequence primary output has been cut dramatically and processors are increasingly relying on stock drawdowns to make up the shortfall. If there is even a modest recovery in demand for tantalum in the near future, the market faces a difficult period.
Tantalum's major usage at present is in the production of electronic components, mainly capacitors and some high-power resistors. Because of the size and weight advantages, tantalum capacitors are attractive for mobile telephones, personal computers, and automotive electronics. Tantalum is also used to produce a variety of alloys that have high melting points, are strong and have good ductility. Alloyed with other metals, it is also used in making carbide tools for metalworking equipment and in the production of superalloys for jet engine components, chemical process equipment, nuclear reactors, and for the military. Due to the fact that it resists attack by body fluids and is nonirritating, tantalum is widely used in making surgical instruments and implants. For example, porous tantalum coatings are used in the construction of orthopaedic implants due to the metal's ability to form a direct bond to hard tissue.
A key issue in the tantalum market, says Roskill, has been the continuing supply of low-cost columbite-tantalite (coltan) mined in Central Africa, in the DRC and Rwanda, mostly illegally, and sold to fund rebel militias. The major processors will not knowingly buy such material and almost all of it goes to China. The availability of large and growing quantities of cheap tantalum, at a time when global demand for consumer electronics is down and processors are holding substantial raw material stocks, has, however, placed the conventional tantalum industry under great pressure. Unable to win the large increase in prices it needed to be economic, the world's largest primary producer, Talison in Australia, suspended mining operations in late 2008. It was soon followed by two others. Within the space of a few months, close to 40% of global primary tantalum capacity was taken out of the market. There are no guarantees as to when, or even if, it will be brought back into production.
However, Roskill reckons that the market remains well-supplied in the immediate short term. A key characteristic of the tantalum industry in recent years has been that supply has nearly always been greater than demand. As a result, large inventories have been built up at most levels of the supply chain. Those stocks are not inexhaustible. In addition, the US strategic stockpile has gone for good and there are questions as how long tin slags can continue to constitute an important tantalum feedstock.
As has been the case in the past, processors are increasingly turning to scrap and other forms of secondary tantalum. Their receipts of secondary material grew by 70% in 2007 and by a further 25% in 2008. The growing use of scrap is evident in trade data.
The tantalum processing industry is attempting to develop systems to keep coltan out of the market by providing ways to physically indentify it before it is processed and becomes untraceable. Some processors are more committed to this than others, and the system is not yet fully in place, but the industry in general is facing mounting pressure from capacitor manufacturers and OEMs to ensure that coltan is not used. It is quite likely that the supply of coltan to the market will fall sharply over the next year or two.
What will compensate for the likely supply shortfall? Production is being expanded in several countries but probably not by enough to replace the coltan. Numerous new tantalum-niobium projects are in the pipeline and several would be very large producers. The big question is when they will come on-stream. Of the three mega-projects, one was originally planned to come into production in 2006, while another has been held up for over two years by red tape. The third may come into production in 2011.
The global economic downturn had a very marked effect on the tantalum supply/demand balance. Demand in 2009 will very probably prove to be 40% down on 2008, but Roskill considers it will fully recover by 2012, although much will obviously depend on the continuing strength of any global economic revival. Whether or not sufficient supply will be in place to meet that demand recovery is another issue entirely.
As Roskill summarises, a large part of the primary supply chain is not producing in 2009 and there are no clear indications as to when, or if, it will come back to the market. Inventories are running down, scrap is in shorter supply because of a fall in capacitor manufacture and it is quite possible that legislation under consideration in the USA could severely restrict or even halt the supply of tantalum from Central Africa.
It is almost certain therefore, Roskill reckons, that a tantalum supply squeeze is approaching. If demand picks up faster than expected, a spike in spot prices seems inevitable. Stability will probably not return to the market until the new projects come on-stream, or consumers accept contract prices at a level sufficient for Australia's Talison to reopen its mining operation.
For full details of the Roskill report go to www.roskill.com/reports/tantalum