Grigory Boyarko
Doctor of Economics

W

hen mineral raw materials are processed in complex, there are products recovered at the same time, which make up a separate group of metals. These are cadmium, selenium, tellurium, bismuth, gallium, thallium, germanium, hafnium, indium, rubidium, cesium, rhenium. The group also includes such rare platinoids as osmium, iridium, ruthenium, rhodium as well as individual rare-earth metals: scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutecium. All of them are called rare or over-the-counter. Volumes of their production vary from several dozens of kilos to between 10,000 and 20,000 tons a year. Sometimes cobalt and vanadium recovered mainly as accompanying components are also referred to as the over-the-counter metals.
Russia’s role in the world rare-metal industry is potentially high because of their large reserves: from 15 % to 30 % of the world’s reserves of beryllium, lithium, vanadium and rare-earth elements as well as from 30 % to 50 % of reserves of niobium and tantalum. But only 40 out of 300 deposits are considered independent and large. Just individual deposits of niobium, tantalum and germanium are thought to be worth developing from the economic point of view. Only 10 deposits are being developed or are prepared for development. The productivity of enterprises built in the recent past is still low.
In most licenses rare metals are accounted for as the associated or accompanying ones. Thus, only 8 % out of 43 % of the licensed deposits of rare-earth metals are counted as metal reserves being developed. The rest of them are, mainly, listed as apatite ores, which rare-earth metals are not recovered from. Licenses for developing lead-zinc and copper-pyrite ores very often do not take into account indium and licenses for developing bauxites ignore gallium. But in recent years these two metals have been in the high market demand.
The passivity of the market is its specific feature as far as every over-the-counter metal is offered. It is caused by the dependence of its production volume on volumes of reprocessing primary raw materials: copper, nickel, polymetallic, lithium, aluminum and other ores. Small volumes of supply and impossibility to control their production volumes make rare metals sensitive to sales market changes. Price fluctuations in these markets amount to dozens and even hundreds of percentage points.
Many rare metals possess high consumer properties. But due to the extremely limited supply of these materials producers try to use substitutes, which have a lower quality but are available. This is, for example, the case with osmium, the price for which in the last 20 years rose from $4.2 to $29.4 a gram and, then, fell down to $13.8 a gram. In 2002 it amounted to $17.9 a gram. It is obvious that with price fluctuations like these osmium consumers cannot conduct any clear-cut marketing policy. There are no normal markets for sales of rubidium and cesium at all. Due to the limited consumption, hafnium and cadmium are recovered from basic products only partially despite the apparent profitability of their full extraction.
Cadmium is recovered as an accompanying component when refining the natural zinc that contains 0.3 % of Cd on average. Russia produces up to 900 tons of this metal a year. It is used in compositions of batteries and mini-accumulators (72 % of its consumption volume), as a pigment of ceramics and plastic (13 %), for corrosion-protective coating of steel-made items (7 %), in the nuclear power industry (4 %). Due to the increased toxicity of cadmium compounds it is being gradually replaced with the nickel-cobalt corrosion-protection coating. Lithium and hydrides of rare-earth metals are substituting it in manufacturing batteries and accumulators. The share of the secondary production of cadmium from used batteries and electronic scrap accounts for 20 % to 30 % of its consumption volumes. Because of the growing zinc production and, as a result, the increase of the primary cadmium volumes along with the simultaneous reduction of demand for it, prices for cadmium were falling down: from $4.06 a kilo in 1995 to $0.66 a kilo in 2002.
Bismuth is recovered as an accompanying component while concentrating molybdenum, tungsten, tin and gold ores as well as at copper, lead and zinc metallurgical process stages. In Russia bismuth is being produced at the Dalnerechensk lead plant in the Primorski Territory. It is used in making fusible alloys and solders (40 %), in pharmacology and as chemicals (40 %), as metallurgical additives (18 %). The share of the bismuth secondary production accounts for 5 % to 10 % of its consumption. Its substitutes, such as antibiotics, magnox and alumina, are used in pharmaceutics. Lead and selenium find their utilization as metallurgical additives. For quite a long time the price for bismuth has been within narrow bounds between $7 and $8.5 a kilo.
Thallium is extracted from gas-purification products at copper, lead and zinc metallurgical process stage. Its annual world production equals 12 to 15 tons. Kazakhstan is the major producer of thallium among CIS member countries. The areas of using this metal are wide but the production volumes are limited by the high toxicity of its some components (but not of items made of it). Thallium is used: in producing semiconductors and variable resistors (up to 70 %), gamma-ray and infrared detectors, transparent filters of acoustic emission detectors and optical sensors; as a mercury additive that lowers its freezing-point temperature, in catalysts of organic compounds; in producing dyes and gravity solutions for separating minerals by their consistence. There are substitutes for thallium available.
Gallium is recovered as an accompanying component while refining zinc and reprocessing bauxites. Russia is one of four main producers of this metal, which is used to manufacture such optoelectronic devices as light-emitting diodes, laser diodes, photodetectors and elements of solar batteries (45 %), substrates (55 %). The effective substitute for gallium or, to be more exact, its GaAs compound has not been found yet. That is why the demand for gallium is steadily high. The price for it has been constantly rising and in 2002 it reached $550 a kilo.
Germanium is extracted when reprocessing ores and as a result of gas purification during the burning of brown coals. The annual world production of the primary germanium comes to between 56 and 68 tons. Russia is among the world’s largest producers of germanium. It is used in manufacturing fiber-optic communication devices (up to 50 %), catalysts of polymerization (20 %), as a component of infrared optical systems (15 %), in electronics and solar batteries (10 %) as well as in metallurgy, chemotherapy and as a component of phosphors. Its substitute in electronics is aluminum. As for other areas, no effective substitute of germanium has been discovered. The protracted period of excess of supply over demand contributed to the passivity of prices for germanium, which in 2002 amounted to $850 a kilo.

Indium obtained as an accompanying product at the Chelyabinsk zinc plant.

Indium is obtained when refining zinc and producing other heavy non-ferrous metals. Russia’s producers of indium are the Chelyabinsk zinc plant and the enterprise Electrozinc in the North Ossetian Autonomous Republic. The country’s total production volume is 15 tons a year or 5 % of the world production volume. Indium is used to make transparent current conducting coatings of liquid-crystal displays and luminous lamps (up to 50 %), solders and special alloys (30 %) as well as for synthesis of compound semiconductors (up to 15 %) and in dentistry (up to 3 %). The cheaper substitutes of indium in transparent conducting coatings are oxides of zinc and tin. No effective replacement of indium in other areas has not been found yet. The irregularity of its supply is the main reason for considerable fluctuations of prices for indium: from $100 to $400 a gram. In 2002 its price averaged $130 a gram.
Rubidium and cesium are recovered as accompanying materials from lithium ores, brines and oil waters. Russia is considered the world’s leader by reserves of these metals but so far they have been produced from the pollucite concentrate being imported from Canada. The world production volumes of the primary rubidium and cesium amount to 1.5 to 2 tons and to 20 tons a year accordingly. These metals are used as components of light-sensitive surface coatings of photoelectric cathodes, for removing residual air from vacuum instruments, as components of catalysts for synthesizing organic resins. Since properties of rubidium and cesium are quite similar, they can be fully interchanged. In 2002 prices for rubidium and cesium equaled $52 a gram and $50 a gram accordingly.
Rhenium is obtained as an accompanying component while reprocessing molybdenite concentrates. Its world production volumes fluctuate from 23 to 45 tons a year. Russia’s output equals 5 tons and Kazakhstan accounts for 2.5 tons. Rhenium is used in heat-resistant superalloys for gas turbines (50 %) and petrochemical catalysts (40 %) as well as in producing thermocouples, reliable electric contacts, in electromagnets, semiconductors, roentgen tubes, etc. Its consumption volume may go down because rhenium catalysts are added with gallium, indium, selenium, tungsten, vanadium and because cobalt and tungsten started to get used in coatings of roentgen tubes. In its turn rhenium is a cheaper substitute for platinum in engineering items, though its application is limited by the small production volume. Prices for rhenium are stable amounting to $1 to $1.2 a gram.
The utilization of individual rare-earth metals is regarded as a separate sector of the over-the-counter materials. They are extracted from independent deposits. The world supply comes to between 80,000 and 82,000 tons. Russia is one of the world’s leaders in producing such a rare-earth metal as scandium. This is one of the costliest types of mineral raw materials. Prices for some of its products vary between $170 and $280 a gram, although oxides of scandium, the metal’s intermediate products, are priced at $0.7 to $3.2 a gram. The demand for scandium is quite limited. Its world consumption volume is between 500 and 1,000 kilos a year. Apart from Russia, scandium is produced by Kazakhstan, Ukraine and China. The main areas of using scandium are: as microadditives to super-strong and light aluminum-magnesium-lithium alloys for the aerospace industry, manufacturing of lasers and mercury lamps. The international trading in scandium is seriously limited by the fact that it is on the list of double-purpose products. The export of scandium from Russia (both in raw materials and items) is limited by special documents.
To a large extent world markets of rare and rare-earth metals are filled in. However, in not so distant future there may be a shortage of such metals as zirconium, tantalum, germanium, gallium, indium, rhenium. Research studies by Russian scientists prove the possibility to considerably increase the through extraction of useful components from polymetallic ores with the help of new technologies. The modern concentration methods, such as the roentgenoradiometric classification, dry magnetic separation, selective flotation, etc. allow to reduce the prime cost of marketable products.