Ferro-niobium

Primary uses. high-strength low-alloy steel for pipelines; superalloys; superconducting magnets.

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. Ferro-niobium's reserves are highly concentrated: 🇧🇷 Brazil holds the most (90%), ahead of 🇨🇦 Canada (9%) and 🇺🇸 United States (1%). At today's extraction rate the known reserves would last roughly 215 years, so scarcity is not the binding constraint — access, capital and processing capacity are. 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 highly concentrated: 🇧🇷 Brazil supplies 90%, with 🇨🇦 Canada (8%) next. That is effectively a single-country dependence — one government's policy or one region's disruption can move the entire upstream. USGS 2024 · 2023 production

● 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. 🇧🇷 Brazil processes 88% — highly concentrated. Brazil leads both mining and refining, so its grip is structural rather than a pure processing gate. On the buffers: 0% of supply is recovered from end-of-life recycling and substitutes are only partial, while the US imports 100% of what it consumes. leading refiner only — fuller breakdown not publicly reported

● Recycling & substitutability — the mitigants (EU CRM)

0% of supply comes from recycling end-of-life products — there is essentially no end-of-life recycling, so a disruption has no secondary cushion. Substitutability is medium — partial substitutes exist.

● 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

A near-monopoly, but on Brazil, not China: Brazil supplies ~84% of EU ferro-niobium (the additive for high-strength steel), with Canada the rest. The naive view points at the Netherlands (~49%, a Rotterdam clearing artefact); the origin is Brazil.

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