Fluorspar, >97% CaF2

Primary uses. hydrofluoric acid production; steelmaking and aluminium smelting flux.

The chain — from the ground to the buyer

A critical material passes through distinct stages, and the country that leads each stage is often different — that gap is what this atlas exists to show. Each layer comes from a different public source with its own vintage, labelled below; shares are % of the world total.

● Reserves — where it could come from

Reserves are the deposits known to exist and economically worth mining — the long-run ceiling on supply, distinct from what is actually produced today. Fluorspar's reserves are broadly diversified: 🇲🇽 Mexico holds the most (24%), ahead of 🇨🇳 China (24%) and 🇿🇦 South Africa (15%). At today's extraction rate the known reserves would last roughly 32 years, so there is only a moderate runway before fresh capacity must come online. Tellingly, the country sitting on the most ore (🇲🇽 Mexico) is not the one extracting it (🇨🇳 China) — geology sets the ceiling, but capacity and policy decide who actually supplies the market. USGS 2024 · reserves as of 2023

● Mined — where it is dug up today

Mining is where ore leaves the ground — the stage most people equate with “the source”, though it is rarely where the supply risk actually concentrates. Output is concentrated: 🇨🇳 China supplies 65%, with 🇲🇽 Mexico (11%) next. That is effectively a single-country dependence — one government's policy or one region's disruption can move the entire upstream. It out-produces reserve-richer 🇲🇽 Mexico while holding just 24% of reserves itself — supply power at this stage is built on installed capacity, not geology. BGS World Mineral Statistics · mine production, 2000–2024 (USGS-validated)

● Refined / processed — where it becomes usable metal

Refining / processing converts ore into the metal or compound buyers actually purchase; it concentrates in fewer hands than mining and sits at the buyer's doorstep, which is why it is usually the true chokepoint. 🇨🇳 China processes 60% — concentrated. China leads both mining and refining, so its grip is structural rather than a pure processing gate. On the buffers: 1% of supply is recovered from end-of-life recycling and substitutes are scarce, while the US imports 100% of what it consumes. leading refiner only — fuller breakdown not publicly reported

● Recycling & substitutability — the mitigants (EU CRM)

1% of supply comes from recycling end-of-life products. Substitutability is high — few or no alternatives, so a disruption bites hard.

● Traded — who ships it

Actual bilateral trade of the traded form, reconciled from UN Comtrade / CEPII BACI. Pick a year below — 2018–2024 measured, 2025* nowcast, 2026** directional scenario. The full 2002–2026 range is on the interactive atlas.

Context

Feedstock for hydrofluoric acid and refrigerants. A diversified non-China dependency: Mexico ~42% and South Africa ~36%, while the naive view blames Italy (~51%). Mexico is an origin that appears nowhere in the member-state picture.

Every figure on this page is computed from out/data.json and out/flows_2024.json by build_profiles.py — no hand-entered numbers.