Tantalum

Tantalum-bearing minerals are found predominantly in Australia, the tin belt of Southeast Asia, Brazil, Canada, and a few countries in central Africa. Resources also occur in parts of China and the former Soviet Union, and recently exploration work has focused on prospects in Greenland, Finland, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

In former times, Thailand and Malaysia were the source of high-grade tin slags containing 4-15% tantalum oxide. The source of this resource was cassiterite concentrates (the oxide of tin), which frequently is “contaminated” with niobium and tantalum minerals. Demand for niobium and tantalum in more recent years has caused those minerals to be recovered before the tin ores were smelted, rather than leaving them in the slag, as often happened in the past.

Tin slag sources can account for up to 500,000 lbs. of contained tantalum oxide per year, but depressed prices of tin have limited the availability of tantalum and niobium from those sources.

The only high-volume hardrock mining operations are the Sons of Gwalia mines, namely Greenbushes and Wodgina, in the southwestern and northern regions of Western Australia, respectively. These two producers are the largest in the world. Production expansions have taken place over the past two years, bringing production levels up to a projected capacity above 3 million lbs. of tantalum oxide per year (based on data from a 3-month period). The current production rate is about 2.1 million lbs. of contained tantalum oxide per year. All other mining operations are processing materials at less than 250,000 lbs. per year of tantalum oxide as a mineral concentrate.

The production of so-called “coltan” in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo appears to be low, owing to the drop in demand and to a crackdown on illegal mining inside National Park areas by miners under the control of renegade militias. Reliable production data from those areas are not available.

Data in the accompanying graph are for the 6-month period ending June 30, 2002. Production of 1.7 million lbs. of tantalum oxide from tantalite and tin slag was documented for that period. The remaining six months of production in 2002 are estimated at 1.7 million lbs., and for the first six months of 2003, the figure is pegged at 1.6 million lbs.

Production of raw material has remained in this range since 1999. The tantalum oxide content of (reported) tantalite production reached 2.6 million lbs. in the second half of 2001. Tin slag as a resource is expected to add between 450,000 and 500,000 lbs. of contained tantalum oxide on a yearly basis as long as dump areas remain accessible to the recovery of low-grade material that contains 2-2.5% tantalum oxide.

— The preceding is from a bulletin published by the Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center in Washington, D.C.

Tantalum Raw Material Production

Tin Slags >2%

Tantalite, Columbite, Struverite, Others

Tantalum

(million lbs.)