Mines and steel plants have been so devalued by the slump in raw materials that some companies have given them away at a time just looking to minimize losses or reduce debt. But there is a metal that is attracting the attention of the whole world: niobium.
This metal is named in honor of Niobe, daughter of King Tantalus and granddaughter of the god Zeus, who in Greek mythology is said to have been turned to stone after Apollo and Artemis (whose mother, Leto, had been mocked by Niobe). for having only two children) will kill all his sons and daughters except one. According to the myth, her tears continue to flow after the transformation into stone.
Niobium is used to produce stronger, lighter steel for industrial tubing and aircraft components. It is available only in three places on Earth, and the price per kilogram is seven times higher than that of copper, for example.
High bid for a small share of the market
China Molybdenum beat out at least 15 other companies last month to take over Anglo American’s niobium and phosphate division, paying $1.5bn, 50% more than analysts expected. A sample of how fashionable is a market that has an approximate value of about 4,000 million dollars.
However, niobium is a very unknown element. “I didn’t know what niobium was, and I had been in the minerals industry for 20 years before this opportunity came to my table,” explains Craig Burton, president of Cradle Resources, which is developing a niobium project in Tanzania. “I actually had to open the periodic table to confirm that it was an element.”
Niobium is hard to find and hard to value. More than 80% of world production comes from one company, the Brazilian Companhia Brasileira de Metalurgia e Mineração (CBMM). In fact, almost all production comes from just three mines in Brazil and Canada, allowing CBMM to set prices and adapt to demand.
In this sense, Metal Bulletin, which publishes the prices of metals as rare as bismuth or germanium, ensures that the niobium market is so little liquid that it cannot give prices. The metal had an average price of $40 a kilo last year, according to Cradle Resources, while the copper equivalent moved at $5.49 in London.
Despite this vogue, niobium prices also fell last year, fueled by the global commodity slump led by oil and gas, which also reduced demand for tubes, Anglo American says.
It is precisely this scarcity of extraction sites that makes niobium so attractive, which is also labeled as a strategically important mineral in both the US and Europe.
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