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イリジウムへの投資：最も希少なハイテク金属

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最も希少なレアメタル

When people think about rare & precious metals, they tend to think of the most common ones, like 金 or プラチナ. Or maybe some of the more industrially useful rare metals, like タングステン, ロジウム, ガリウム, even レニウム. (各金属に関する投資レポートはリンクをご参照ください)。

しかし、プラチナ族金属の中でもさらに希少な鉱物があり、実際に地殻: イリジウムです。

This ultra-rare metal, much more common in meteorites, is currently used in small amounts in many high-tech applications like aeronautics, medical imaging, and LED screens. It can also be used to generate green hydrogen, although the large-scale deployment of this technology has been hindered by the high price of iridium.

イリジウムとは？

Iridium is a very rare metal, in the same family as platinum, which is only formed in the most violent cosmic events like supermassive supernovae or the merger of neutron stars. So its relative rarity on Earth is also a reflection of its overall rarity in the whole Universe.

When purified, it appears as a silvery metal, although the ore and alloy can often display rainbow colors, from which it derived its name, inspired by Iris, the goddess of the rainbow in Rome.

Iridium is the second-densest naturally occurring metal, after osmium. It is also extremely resistant to corrosion, even at temperatures as high as 2,000 °C (3,630 °F), and has a melting point of 2,446 °C (4,434 °F).

This extreme density contributes to its rarity in the Earth’s crust, as it sank into the planet’s core during early planetary formation. It is quite more abundant in meteorites; as a result, an unusually higher concentration of iridium in the layer of rock dated -65 million years ago is considered a strong indication that dinosaurs’ extinction was due to a large meteor impact.

As a rare mineral, iridium is generally mined together with other slightly more common metals, especially platinum and palladium.

2024年に世界で生産されたイリジウムはわずか248,000オンス、すなわち7トンです。.

イリジウムの用途

坩堝

Because of its extreme heat and corrosion resistance, iridium is a perfect material for crucibles (frames/molds used in metallurgy and chemistry).

This is especially the case for the production process of large oxide single-crystal leveraging, a method known as the Czochralski method, developed by a Polish scientist in 1916.

This is a crucial technology for the production of many of the most modern technologies, largely reliant on iridium-based crucibles, especially:

  • シリコン半導体はコンピュータメモリ、固体レーザー、太陽光パネルに使用されます。
  • サファイア結晶はスマートフォンのガラスやその他のディスプレイに使用されます。
  • イットリウム・アルミニウム・ガーネット（YAG）は高エネルギー・高出力レーザーに使用されます。
  • ガリウム砒素半導体はLEDライト・レーザー、医療画像、薄膜太陽電池の製造に使用されます。

出典: AEM

金属合金

When mixed with other metals, iridium gives the resulting alloy superior corrosion resistance. This is used in many specialized applications requiring high performance despite difficult environment mixing high temperature, corrosion, and wear/friction.

航空機

Most of the time, the iridium is used as a coating applied to the surface of the critical part, but it can also sometimes be a constitutive part of the whole part, for example:

Parts of aircraft engines are coated with iridium, including jet engine turbines. This not only increases the durability of the parts but also minimizes surface wear and friction; iridium-coated components can operate more smoothly, enhancing the overall efficacy and longevity of aircraft engines.

航空宇宙・防衛

For similar reasons, iridium coating is used in satellite thrusters, allowing them to be lighter and more durable. The Falcon 9 rocket engine also has an iridium alloy in its rocket engine exhaust.

Because iridium is very radiation resistant, it can be used to shield nuclear batteries and was notably used this way to keep the radiation of the plutonium-238 battery in NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 space probes contained.

Iridium is also used in missile guidance systems, notably in the tip of ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles).

自動車・エンジン

The extreme resistance of iridium is leveraged in high-end iridium spark plugs for cars and other engines, often multiplying by 3x- 4x their durability. Iridium spark plugs are also commonly used in aviation.

出典: Niterra

触媒

When discussed for its uses in catalytic reaction, iridium is often mostly discussed in the context of hydrogen production, as this is a sector long-expected to boom from the demand for green hydrogen. However, iridium’s (and platinum’s) high costs have long limited the economic viability of green hydrogen produced with these metals.

It is, however, routinely used in many other important chemical processes, notably the transformation of methanol into acetic acid, the production of chlorine, and also specialty chemicals like, for example, the herbicide Metolachlor, produced by Syngenta.

医療画像

A radioactive isotope of iridium, iridium-192, is used for medical applications. It is produced by exposing non-radioactive natural iridium to a neutron source.

Iridium-192 is used as a source of gamma radiation in cancer radiotherapies, especially for internal organ cancers.

産業用途

Titanium-iridium alloy is used for deep-water pipes because of its corrosion resistance. It is also used in extruders (spinnerets) to form fibers like viscose.

出典: Wikipedia

In non-medical uses, iridium-192 is the key component for gamma radiography (alongside cobalt-60), a method used to analyze metals without damaging them. This is done to check welds, pipes, pressure containers, tanks, etc., especially for demanding applications like defense production or aerospace, including rocket production.

出典: GammaBuana

その他の用途

Iridium was also commonly used in the past for reinforcing the tips of pens.

It is also the material chosen, due to its extreme durability from its resistance to corrosion even for extremely long period of time, as the base component together with platinum for the International Prototype Meter and kilogram mass, kept by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris, the physical reference for the measurement of a meter and a kilogram.

出典: Wikipedia

イリジウム市場と生産

Due to its small volumes, the iridium market is rather small, 2024年の年間売上は14億ドルで、2031年までに年平均成長率4.9%で拡大すると予測されています.

This is also a very concentrated market, with South Africa producing 80% of the global supply, followed by Russia, and almost no other sources.

In Russia, iridium production is mostly the by-product of mining for palladium and nickel by the company Norilsk Nickel.

In South Africa, the largest producers are mostly platinum and palladium producers:

イリジウム 会社

Sibanye Stillwater

(SBSW )

プラチナに特化した企業の中で圧倒的に最大規模であるSibanye Stillwaterは、業界のリーダーです。

南アフリカは世界のプラチナ（およびイリジウム）の80%を生産しており、Sibanye Stillwaterはそのうちの4分の1を担っています（Anglo-Americanは銅と鉄に重点を置くはるかに大規模な多角的鉱山会社です）。

同社はプラチナ族金属全体、すなわちプラチナ、パラジウム、ロジウム、イリジウム、ルテニウムのすべてを生産しています。

Lonminを買収した当時、同社は世界のイリジウム供給の12%を単独で生産しており、さらに自社のプラチナ・パラジウム鉱山での生産と合わせて、Sibanye Stillwaterはこのニッチ金属の主要プレーヤーでもあります。

同社は現在、金およびバッテリーメタル市場への参入を目指して多角化を進めており、特にフィンランドでのリチウム採掘プロジェクトが注目されています。

Sibanye Stillwaterは金とウランの生産にも関与しています。金の生産は最近、プラチナ事業のEBITDAを上回る成果を上げており、金価格の史上最高とプラチナ価格が低迷していることが要因です。

The uranium activity on the Beisa mine has been somewhat transferred to the company Neo Energy Metals (NEO.L) for $28M and a 40% stake in the company, as well as royalties on all uranium sold from the Beisa project, with Neo Energy Metals owning another uranium project (Henkries).

イリジウムは事業全体のごく一部に過ぎないため、プラチナやパラジウム（場合によっては金）市場の動向を理解することが、同社への投資家にとって重要です。

2024年9月、Sibanye Stillwaterはモンタナ・スティルウォーター鉱山を再編し、生産量を45%削減してコスト削減を図ると発表しました。この鉱山はプラチナよりもパラジウムが多く含まれており、パラジウム価格の低迷に苦しんでいます。

これにより4億3,500万ドルの減損費用が発生し、同社は2024年上半期に赤字を計上しました。

また、現在の価格はプラチナが豊富な地域の多くで生産コストをかろうじてカバーできる程度であり、鉱山閉鎖前の業界の底値となっています。

触媒市場での金属代替の可能性を懸念しつつイリジウムに関心のある投資家も、Sibanye Stillwaterに注目すべきです。

同社はドイツの技術グループHeraeusと、イリジウムの代替として同社が生産するルテニウム（イリジウムの3.5倍の埋蔵量）を使用する取引を進めています。

これにより触媒水素生成の資本支出が90%削減され、水素生産がより実現可能になりました。

総合的に見て、Sibanye Stillwaterはイリジウム、ルテニウム、パラジウム、プラチナといったプラチナ族金属全体の独自の特性を活かしたい投資家にとって有望な銘柄です。特に、これらの金属のいずれかが、グリーン水素生産、ジェットエンジン、ミサイル、宇宙探査、半導体製造、放射線治療などの急成長するハイテク分野で不可欠であるためです。

Sibanye Stillwaterの最新情報

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Jonathanは元バイオケミストの研究者で、遺伝子分析と臨床試験に従事していました。現在は、株式アナリストおよびファイナンスライターとして、革新、市場サイクル、地政学に焦点を当てた出版物 'The Eurasian Century" に貢献しています。