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중국의 안티모니 수출 제한이 이 금속 원소의 전략적 중요성을 강조하다
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중국의 갑작스러운 제한
In 2024년 8월, China announced limits to antimony exports “in the name of national security”. This brought a lot of attention to a rarely discussed metal, despite its importance in the modern world. The ban, effective from the 15th of September, is also very extensive, including:
- 안티모니 광석, 안티모니 금속 및 안티모니 산화물을 포함한 6가지 안티모니 관련 제품.
- 허가 없이 금‑안티모니 제련 및 분리 기술의 수출.
This follows previous restrictions on critical minerals exports by China, like the 2023년 12월 희소금속 자석 제조 기술 수출 제한. The country has also reduced exports of materials used by the semiconductor and battery industries, such as graphite products, gallium, and germanium.
You can read more about the impact of China’s restriction on antimony exports CSIS(전략 및 국제 연구센터) 기사, including the strategic importance of antimony for the US defense industry.
In parallel, the prices of antimony are hitting all-time highs. So, investors might benefit from paying attention to this long-forgotten metal, which is much less discussed than iron, copper, lithium, or uranium.
안티모니는 어디서 나오는가?
Antimony is a pure metal element naturally found in many mineral ores. It belongs to the vanadium family and shares characteristics with lead, arsenic, and bismuth.
Antimony is sometimes toxic (depending on its chemical form) as well as carcinogenic (causing cancer).
It is an element known since the dawn of civilization, with for example a mention of it in a 1600 BC Egyptian papyrus for its use as mascara (코흘), or a 5000-year-old vase made of pure antimony is shown in the Louvre museum.
Most commonly, it is found alongside gold or silver deposits and is commercially produced from stibnite or antimony trisulfide, which is then reduced with scrap iron. Antimony oxide is then reduced with carbon.
출처: Nihon Seiko
Antimony is very much a metal produced only out of Eastern countries, with the top producers being in order: China (48% of global production), Tajikistan (25%), Turkey, Burma, Russia, Bolivia, and then only Australia (3%).
The US used to cover most of its domestic needs through the production of the Stibnite gold mine, but it was closed in the 1990s following a tightening of environmental regulations.
By reserves, the major antimony-rich countries are China, Russia, Bolivia and Kyrgyzstan.
출처: Mining.com
왜 안티모니가 중요한가?
Antimony has evolved over time from a metal used occasionally in ancient medicine and cosmetics into a key metal of modern technology.
It is 2024년 10억 8000만 달러 규모 시장이며, 2032년까지 연평균 6.5% 성장할 것으로 예상됩니다, with many different applications. In most of these applications, antimony is a critical component, either very hard or impossible to substitute with another element.
In addition, these applications tend to be critical to safety or performance, making them essential to the final product operating as intended.
출처: Fortune
몰드 및 케이싱
A key feature of antimony is that it is one of the rare elements that expands on cooling (instead of the opposite). This allows for antimony to function as an excellent material when used for molds and casings, as they will retain shapes and fine details when cooling.
경화 합금
In alloys, the addition of antimony increases the hardness of concurrent metals like lead and tin. This turns antimony into a key material in many applications, including many strategic or high-tech ones.
탄약
A likely reason for the sudden restrictions on Chinese exports is the role played by antimony in ammunition production.
The hardening effect that antimony has on many metals makes it a key component of armor-piercing ammunition and high-quality bullets. This is because it is critical in the production of tungsten steel and hardened lead bullets (3-6% antimony).
This makes antimony a strong complement to tungsten in the category of military-critical metals. You can read more about tungsten, how its production out of China and Russia has long been neglected, as well as how to invest in it in our dedicated article “텅스텐 – 비밀 고기술 금속”.
Another function of antimony in ammunition is when in metallic form, it can be used to help explosive trigger properly. This makes it a key component of every firearm cartridge, in grenade fuses and artillery shells, even if it makes only 1% of the total.
The world has seen a massive uptick in demand for ammunition with the start of the war in Ukraine, as well as the escalating conflict in the Middle East (Yemen & Gaza, but maybe also Syria & Lebanon, or even Iraq & Iran).
So, with the whole world looking to replenish stockpiles of ammo, or increase them, we can expect that antimony will be in high demand for this application for the whole decade to come.
에너지
풍력 / 기계 부품
The hardening of metal by antimony is very useful in gear and ball bearings. This makes it a key material in many industrial processes, of which a very quickly growing one is the mechanical parts of wind turbines.
With wind turbine constructions expected to keep growing quickly (see “풍력으로 세계를 움직일 수 있을까?“), this makes antimony a critical mineral for the green energy revolution.
It will also be, together with tungsten, an essential mineral for any tentative re-industrialization of the US and the Western powers.
태양광
The photovoltaic sector currently consumes 50,000 tons of antimony per year. It is used there as a clarifying agent in photovoltaic glass.
“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.”
“The use of antimony trioxide as a clarifying agent in photovoltaic glass is a developing trend, and it is expected to maintain rapid growth in the coming years.”
안티모니 셀레나이드(Sb2Se3)는 “자체 치유” 태양광 패널의 태양광 흡수체로도 사용될 수 있습니다.
Meanwhile, 안티모니 트리설파이드는 태양전지 자체에 통합되는 것이 고려되고 있으며, 목표는 31.15%에 달하는 에너지 변환 효율을 달성하는 것입니다.
As solar panels of various designs, most of them using glass to protect the photovoltaic cells, 풍력과 함께 재생에너지의 주류 형태가 될 것으로 예상됩니다, the trend of green energy replacing fossil fuels is strong support for increasing demand for antimony.
핵
Antimony is used in nuclear reactors as bearing or sealing material for coolant pumps.
Antimony is also used in 냉간 압축 안티모니‑베릴륨(Sb‑Be) 펠릿 for nuclear start-up rod assemblies, which are used to initiate nuclear reactions.
This is also true for use in SMR(소형 모듈 원자로), often considered as the future of the nuclear industry.
So, while less likely to lead to massive antimony demand, like in the case of solar and wind power generation, 우리의 미래 에너지 믹스가 핵에도 의존한다면, this would be positive for antimony demand as well.
배터리
Antimony is used in grid alloys in lead batteries for automobile batteries.
A new type of battery, 칼슘‑안티모니 화학을 기반으로 한 용융 금속 배터리, was touted as a solution to a grid‑scale battery system.
The project is, however, experiencing setbacks with 배터리 개발업체 Ambri의 파산, following a failed capital raise.
This, however, does not change the technical value of metal liquid batteries to green the power grid, nor has it yet been decided what the acquirer of Ambri’s IP will do with the technology.
반도체, 적외선 센서 및 야간 투시
Another application of antimony is in the semiconductor industry.
III‑V semiconductors containing antimony can cover a broad range of energies in the near and mid‑infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
This makes them useful for infrared detectors and gas‑sensing emitters, which are in turn key to light‑detection and ranging (LiDAR) detectors used in autonomous vehicles, but also military and civilian night vision systems.
It is also to become increasingly in demand due to the growing range of applications of drones, autonomous vehicles, and machine vision using either infrared sensors, LiDAR and radar.
Infrared sensor producer Phlux Technology uses antimony in infrared sensing. The use of antimony provides 10 times more sensitivity and 50pc more range to sensors compared to silicon‑based sensors, improving their performance in radar systems while reducing the cost of manufacturing.
Viewpoint: Antimony use likely in new technologies – Argus Media
Antimony might even be useful in other computing applications, as illustrated by Quantimony products, creating quantum semiconductors with this element.
Lastly, it is used in small amounts for plenty of other electrical and electronic devices, like circuit boards, electric switches, fluorescent lighting, etc.
난연제
When combined with a halogen – fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine – antimony suppresses the spread of flames.
A large amount of antimony is currently used in this role as a flame retardant in fabrics and other materials like plastics and rubber.
This used to be a very important function 제2차 세계대전 중 텐트와 차량 커버에 적용된 안티모니 기반 방화 화합물.
“Antimony is also vital to our military’s effectiveness and has been since it was labeled as crucial to the war effort during World War II,”
안티모니 투자
When it comes to antimony, the metal has been mostly ignored by Western investors for several decades.
So now that people have realized its strategic importance (quite late), there could be a rush to fund new projects out of China, its allies, and non‑Western countries.
This would also not be unprecedented, as the very same thing happened in WW2.
Prior to the buildup to the War, the United States was almost entirely dependent on China for its supply of antimony. When that supply was cut off by Japan, America had to find another source of this key mineral.
Fortunately for the U.S. at that time, a gold mine in central Idaho called the Stibnite mine was able to step up production of the antimony that is an element in the mine’s ore and helped fill the void.
In 2024년 8월, the antimony price rose to metric ton당 $22,000을 넘어 사상 최고가, having roughly doubled since the start of the year due to a global deficit of the metal (around 10,000 tons deficit on 83,000 tons global production) and concern about geopolitics.
You can invest in antimony‑related companies through many brokers, and you can find here, on securities.io, our recommendations for the best brokers in 미국, 캐나다, 호주, and 영국, 다른 많은 국가.
If you are not interested in picking specific antimony‑related companies, you can also look into ETFs like VanEck Rare Earth and Strategic Metals ETF (REMX) which will provide a more diversified exposure to capitalize on the mining industry.
Or you can read our dedicated article about “텅스텐 – 비밀 고기술 금속“, which presents similar opportunities and conditions of long neglect followed by urgent renewed geopolitical importance.
안티모니 기업
1. Perpetua Resources Corp
PPTA 가격 차트
Perpetua는 미국 아이오와 주에 있는 Stibnite 금 프로젝트를 재개발하려는 광산 회사이며, 과거 미국 안티모니의 90% 공급원이었다.
현재 수요가 훨씬 높으며, 미국 현대 수요의 약 35%를 충당할 것으로 예상된다.
Because of the urgency for domestic antimony production, Perpetua has received 미국 수출입은행(EXIM)으로부터 최대 18억 달러 규모 부채 자금 조달 의향서 to push the project forward quickly.
This would fall under EXIM’s Make More in America initiative, aiming at revitalizing American manufacturing.
While antimony is the core of the project rationale, it would also produce a lot of gold, with the largest reserves among all US independent gold projects.
출처: Perpetua
Thanks to high‑grade ore, it would also have an All‑in Sustaining Costs (AISC) of only $636/ounce, while gold prices reached all‑time highs above the historical $2,500/ounce threshold.
출처: Perpetua
Like all mining projects, even an accelerated timeline will require many years for the project to get going.
The company will also implement modern mining practices to solve the environmental issues that led to the closing of the mine in the first place. This includes supporting the fishing and wildlife population, reforestation, and addressing the historical impact of previous mining operations.
Currently, the company envisions permitting to start in 2025, with commercial operation starting in 2028 at the earliest.
출처: Perpetua
Perpetua is currently the most important antimony project in the USA. This explains its accelerated permitting and easy financing, usually the 2 problems on which junior mining projects can die.
It could also prove to be a very profitable gold mining operation, which would prove highly rewarding for its shareholders.
In both the case of antimony and gold production, it is likely that Perpetua profits will be tightly linked to geopolitical turmoil, making it a potentially interesting addition to a portfolio to manage volatility driven by international tensions.
2. Lavrotto Resources (LRV.AX)
Lavrotto is a junior mining company operating in Australia and New Zealand, producing copper, gold, antimony, cobalt, PGE, and lithium.
It owns one of the world’s top 10 largest antimony deposits, mixed with gold resources, Hillgrove 매장, north of Sydney. The mine already exists and needs extra investment to restart, but this makes it less risky than an entirely new project for most junior miners.
It expects its All‑in Sustaining Costs (AISC) for the Hillgrove project to be around $820 /ounce, with production to restart by 2026.
출처: Larvotto
The other 3 projects of Lavrotto (Eyre, Mt Isa, and Ohakuri) are all in the exploration stage (determining the existing resources and discussing permitting with the national administration).
Thanks to its close timeline to production for the restart of the Hillgrove mine, Lavrotto could be in an excellent position to benefit from the antimony restriction enacted by China.
Australia is also shaping to become a key part of the Western alliance to alleviate the dependency on Chinese imports for key minerals like uranium, lithium, rare earth, antimony, etc.
