mineral brokers

Archive for the ‘tantalite’ Category

Today I want to employ me again with one of the above mentioned specialty metals, the price shoots through the roof for months. Tantalum is an element of the vanadium group, also known as a strategic metal. It is often mistakenly become the rare earth elements in a pot has to do with this except the importance for the industry but nothing. It comes in the earth’s crust far less than that and is one of several extremely rare, but particularly important for the electronics heavy metals. It is associated in nature, always with varying amounts of niobium, as it were, its sister metal, which after the first discovery for a long time could not be separated from the tantalum. There is often also a joint presentation with tin, feldspar and lithium. Thus approximately 10% of the tantalum produced from the tin production, 20% of the offer can be recycled from scrap.

Tantalum is essential in many areas

More than half of the tantalum is used by the electronics industry and growing. Processed into extremely powerful micro-capacitors, it makes many modern devices such as smartphones possible. Without this metal you would have no powerful cell phone, no navigation system or an onboard computer in the car, no entertainment in the living room. In addition, it is essential for some medical implants because of its extreme reactivity. Third focus for use are super alloys for turbines and engines. They are affected by incorporation of tantalum and tungsten, particularly resistant and heat resistant. Similarly, tantalum is essential for the chemical industry in some areas. Although there are approaches to replace the expensive tantalum, niobium by the cheaper, which in many applications simply not possible.

The electronics industry complains of delivery problems

Why do I describe to you all this? Well, I have in the recent quarterly results, especially from the electronic notes struck again and again to supply problems, which overshadow the outlook of the company. Although the responsibility is often passed on to the suppliers, I have the suspicion that this problem has a very different background. And the states that supply problems with the increasing scarcity of tantalum! Therefore, I have traced this phenomenon more closely.

It is not enough to cover the primary tantalum demand on the market

Several causes are the father of this problem: How were shut down in 2008 because of several tantalum mines unprofitable. Not closed – they can be, in principle, relatively quickly set in motion. What story, however, lies behind this rather terse statement, is more than exciting. It provides enough material for an entire criminal history.

Material for more than a detective story

Probably to blame and at the same opponent in the tantalum market always appear above mentioned Talison Minerals, by 2008 the largest tantalum producer in the world and the German-American company HC Starck, world leader in tantalum processing. Minor characters in the drama are:

the German KFW Bank,

the Government of the Congo,

Congolese militant groups,

the extreme suffering Congolese civilian population,

the U.S. Senate,

various non-government organizations

the microelectronic industry,

the Australian developer of a tantalum mine Gippsland LTD.

Canadian Explorer Commerce Resources

Consumers who want to buy more powerful, but cheap microelectronics.

The object of desire of course is the tantalum and thus earning money. No wonder, since the price of this rare metal of 38 USD / lb (December 2009) at least 95 USD / lb increase. No, they must now do not look after its share prices. It does not exist. Tantalum is traded only on spot prices or fixed purchase contracts. The exact prices and quantities of completed transactions are not even published. One reason why it came to this crime, which could now bring the electronics industry in distress.

With horror, I just throw a glance at the clock and realize that time is unfortunately no longer sufficient to tell you the resolution of mystery stories. So we move on to the issue of the Small Cap Daily Tuesday.

Interesting reading for your weekend

In the meantime, I can still recommend an interesting read for the weekend. Just the latest book by Mikael Henrik of Nauckhoff appeared in the financial publishing house. His theme is again “Strategic metals and rare earth metals, which were already part of his book in 2009 Metallic (my review then you can read again). His new book is a veritable compendium of knowledge about these interesting metals, without which our modern economy and technology would not be possible. Very interesting! I will discuss it soon here in detail.