Supply will continue to suffer at the hands of demand for quite some time and this can only mean one thing for the price of antimony - it will continue to rise.
From the same articleEstimates suggest antimony’s use as a flame retardant now accounts for approximately half of global demand.
Instead, two new dynamics are pushing up demand:
Solar
Antimony is used as a clarifying agent in photovoltaic (PV) glass — and, in 2023, solar PV installations reached record levels in China (already one of the world’s biggest consumers of antimony).According to China Merchants Securities, antimony demand from the photovoltaic sector is forecast to increase to 68,000 tons in 2026 from 16,000 tons in 2021, with the sector’s share in total consumption rising to 39% from 11%.
Project Blue estimates solar PV will account for more than a third of non-metallurgical demand by 2050.
This is already impacting supply chains with, for example, some antimony smelters reportedly switching to process the raw material into sodium antimonate – used in PV glass to improve the efficiency of solar panels — rather than making ingot for conversion into antimony trioxide for in flame retardants.
“With a growth rate of 30% year on year, the demand for antimony in the photovoltaic industry has changed the supply-demand balance of the antimony industry” — Kang Dongsheng, chairman of major Chinese antimony producer, Hsikwangshan Twinkling Star Co Ltd told FastMarkets
Ammunition
In the US, the main primary consumption of antimony in 2023, were:
- 43%, metal products, including antimonial lead and ammunition
- 35%, flame retardants
- 22%, nonmetal products, including ceramics and glass and rubber products
With global arms production and geopolitical tension rising significantly, antimony’s primary importance is increasingly bound up in national security priorities.
For example, the new export controls by China on six types of antimony-related products, including antimony ore, antimony metals and antimony oxide, are effective from September 2024 — and being imposed “in order to safeguard national security and interests, and fulfil international obligations such as non-proliferation”, China’s Commerce ministry said in a statement.
And not all of this demand will be shown in the data, as Christopher Ecclestone, principal and mining strategist at Hallgarten & Co, told Reuters: “clandestine” western military buying is also driving antimony demand. ”The supply crisis is not going away and the military have bottomless pockets,” he said.
