Antimony Metal: What 99.65% Does Not Mean

Antimony arrives with a number attached, and the number is usually the wrong one for the question being asked. A mine announcement counts ore. The USGS counts contained antimony. The price series quotes a single grade of antimony metal, on a delivered basis. A flame-retardant buyer reads impurity limits that the headline assay does not describe. China’s export control list controls ore and metal at every grade and oxide only at or above 99.99%, a threshold that sits above the flame-retardant grades tabulated below.

Each of those figures is correct inside its own frame, and none of them answers the question it is normally used for. The sections below take the frames apart in the order a purchase meets them: tonnage, then price, then the oxide specification, then the licence, then a year of consumption figures that measure something other than consumption, and finally where new supply is supposed to come from.

There is no live antimony price on this page; spot assessments belong to the price-reporting agencies and this site subscribes to none of them. Every price below comes from the USGS annual series, whose footnotes name the assessment it republishes; the grade specifications further down come from the producers and the standard, and are attributed where they appear.

Contained antimony is not the tonnage

The USGS table for antimony carries a unit line above the numbers: metric tons, antimony content, unless otherwise specified. Production, trade and consumption in that table are therefore metal, not material. Ore, concentrate and oxide are weighed as the antimony inside them, and the oxide quantities in the import columns are contained-antimony equivalents rather than the weight of white powder on the truck.

The distinction bites hardest in a reserve headline. In October 2025 an Idaho company broke ground on an antimony project that, according to the company, holds total proven and probable reserves of 14 million tons of antimony, at an ore cutoff grade of 0.42% contained antimony, with $80 million conditionally awarded by the U.S. Department of War (USGS, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: antimony). The source prints that tonnage in its own phrasing, and the cutoff in the same sentence is what makes it readable: 14 million tons of rock at 0.42% contained antimony works out to about 58,800 tonnes of antimony. That is close to the 60,000 tonnes the same table lists as total U.S. reserves, whose footnote attributes the figure to the same project’s company-reported probable reserves.

Fifty-eight thousand tonnes stops sounding large when it is set against world mine supply of 110,000 tonnes. Reserves are not annual output, and nothing here says the project will supply half the world. What the comparison does say is that the whole U.S. reserve base, counted the way the USGS counts it, is the same order of magnitude as six months of global mine production. Any argument that a new mine changes the supply picture has to be read against that scale rather than against the headline tonnage.

The antimony metal price is quoted on one grade: 99.65%

Antimony prices are quoted against a specification, and the specification is narrower than the word suggests. The USGS price footnote reads: antimony minimum 99.65%, cost, insurance and freight, and names Argus Media’s non-ferrous assessment as the source. The series that gets cited as “the antimony price” is therefore one grade of antimony metal, delivered, assessed by one agency.

That figure of 99.65% is not arbitrary. The Chinese antimony ingot standard, GB/T 1599-2014, divides the metal into four designations, Sb99.90, Sb99.70, Sb99.65 and Sb99.50 (GB/T 1599-2014, antimony ingot). The priced grade is the second lowest of the four. A buyer who needs low arsenic for a battery alloy, or a foundry buying ingot for bearing metal, is not buying the grade the price series describes. That buyer is on a different line of the same market and will not find their grade in the index.

The per-tonne column is this page’s multiplication at 2,204.62 pounds to the tonne. The USGS publishes only the per-pound series, so any quote compared against a per-tonne figure has already been through this conversion.

The monthly path is the part a procurement file needs. The assessment sat at $9.80 a pound in August 2024 and reached $18.10 by December, after China announced export restrictions on antimony in August and then, as the USGS puts it, banned all exports of antimony to the United States in December; the underlying notice of 3 December 2024 said that applications would in principle not be approved (Notice No. 46 of 2024). The price added another 52% to $27.50 by June 2025 and eased to $20.30 in November 2025.

Read as a level rather than as a trend, the 2024 average is 41% of the 2025 average, so a quotation carried over from the previous year understates the market by about 59%.

Antimony trioxide is bought on impurities

Antimony trioxide is the second commodity, and its specification is written in parts per million of things that are not antimony trioxide. A standard flame-retardant grade from a Western producer carries a minimum assay of 99.5% Sb2O3 and permits up to 0.10% arsenic and 0.10% lead (Amspec, KR grade). Those limits are 1,000 ppm each, so in a 99.5% lot two-fifths of the material that is not Sb2O3 can be arsenic and lead by specification.

Source: the producer’s published datasheets for its four grades, read in November 2026. The figures describe one supplier’s range, not an industry standard.

Two consequences follow. The headline assay separates almost nothing: the four grades run from 99.5% to 99.9% and all of them are sold into the same class of applications. The impurity columns are where the commercial difference lives. That is the reason a grade like Select exists: European limits on lead in electrical equipment left the standard grade outside the limit in some applications, and polyester polymerisation catalysts need a cleaner oxide. Moving from the standard grade to the high-purity one cuts permitted lead from 1,000 ppm to 425 ppm and permitted arsenic from 1,000 ppm to 350 ppm (Amspec, Select grade).

Particle size cuts across purity independently. The two 99.5% grades differ mainly in average particle size, 0.9 to 1.3 µm against 1.6 to 3.0 µm, because a compounder chasing a colour target in a pigmented plastic wants less tint from the synergist, not more antimony.

The function explains why the specification looks the way it does. Antimony trioxide is not a flame retardant on its own. It is a synergist for halogenated systems, and the producer’s own note puts the effect at roughly a factor of two: without it, about twice as much halogenated compound would be needed to reach the same level of flame retardancy. A paint, a cable jacket and a polyester chip run the same chemistry and buy different columns of the same certificate.

The control line sits above the flame-retardant grades in the table

China’s export control list does not control antimony oxide as a class. Item 3C003 controls the oxide only at a purity of 99.99% and above, while ore and raw materials, and antimony metal and its products, are listed with no purity condition at all (dual-use export control list, in force 1 December 2024).

Read against the grade table above, the threshold sits above the highest flame-retardant grade that producer sells. A 99.5% or 99.8% oxide is outside the controlled range. What is inside it is the top of the assay scale, the material where arsenic and lead are held in the tens of parts per million.

A fifth of a percentage point decides which regime a shipment falls under. The rest of the entry follows the same logic: organic antimony compounds are controlled above 99.999% on an inorganic-element basis, antimony hydrides above 99.999%, and indium antimonide on two conditions that the entry requires jointly, a dislocation density below 50 per square centimetre for single crystal and a purity above 99.99999% for polycrystal. Those are semiconductor thresholds, not commodity ones.

The instrument history matters to anyone reading an old compliance file. The antimony regime began as a standalone announcement in August 2024, in force from 15 September, and that announcement was among eleven repealed on 1 December 2024 when the consolidated list took effect, with the antimony items carried into 3C003 and the oxide threshold unchanged (Announcement No. 33 of 2024). A memo that cites the 2024 antimony announcement as current law is citing a repealed instrument. The gallium and germanium entries travelled the same road into 3C001 and 3C002; the germanium grade guide and the gallium guide trace that sequence from their own ends.

Destination rules sit on top of the list rather than inside it. Notice No. 46 prohibited dual-use exports to U.S. military users and uses outright, and provided that licences covering gallium, germanium, antimony and superhard materials bound for the United States would in principle not be approved; the same paragraph applies a stricter end-user and end-use review to graphite, so the suspension below reaches that line too. Notice No. 72 of 9 November 2025 suspended that second paragraph until 27 November 2026 (Notice No. 72 of 2025). The first paragraph, the military end-use prohibition, was not suspended. What the suspension does and does not change, and the date it runs out, is set out in the note on Notice No. 72.

For a buyer the practical test is one question per line of the invoice. Ore and metal: controlled, at any grade. Oxide: controlled at 99.99% and above, outside the list below that. Destination: a separate rule that overrides the grade question entirely.

Consumption in 2025 was disappearance, not demand

The USGS apparent consumption figure is a residual, not a survey. It is defined as primary production plus secondary production from old scrap plus imports of oxide and unwrought metal, minus exports of the same. Anything bought and put on a shelf is counted as consumed in the year it was bought.

In 2025 that residual jumped to 45,000 tonnes from 28,600 tonnes in 2024. The components show where it came from. Oxide imports rose from 24,000 tonnes to 39,000 tonnes while imports of unwrought metal and powder fell from 4,920 tonnes to 4,500 tonnes (USGS, antimony). A year in which buyers took 62% more oxide and 8% less metal is a year of inventory, and the 57% rise in apparent consumption is the arithmetic of that inventory rather than evidence that American plants consumed more antimony.

The structural numbers move less and tell more. Net import reliance reached 91% in 2025, after 86% in 2024 and 81% in both 2023 and 2022. Secondary recovery supplied 12% of apparent consumption, and the USGS values the secondary antimony produced in 2025 at $190 million, almost all of it antimonial lead recovered from spent lead-acid batteries and returned to the same industry.

Import sources decide what a disruption looks like on a purchase order. Across 2021 to 2024, 66% of U.S. oxide imports came from China, with Belgium at 16%, Bolivia at 6% and France at 5%. Unwrought metal and powder were more dispersed: China 22%, India 22%, Thailand 20%, Vietnam 13%. Combined metal and oxide, China accounted for 55%.

Where the next tonne comes from

World mine production of antimony was 110,000 tonnes in 2025, down from 119,000 tonnes in 2024, and Russia falls from 40,000 tonnes to 32,000 tonnes, with the chapter noting that 2024 output for five countries, Russia and China among them, was revised on company, government and third-party reports (USGS, antimony). China held 40,000 tonnes in both years. Tajikistan produced 22,000, Bolivia 5,000, Burma 4,500 and Turkey 3,000.

Metal production starts from stibnite, which is antimony sulfide, and the published description of the chemistry covers two steps: roasting the sulfide to the oxide, then reducing that oxide with carbon (RSC, antimony). A third step follows in the commercial chain: crude metal is refined and purified before it can be sold against an ingot designation, and the USGS production table counts smelter output separately from mine output. Extraction from ore is the easy end. What separates a mine from a standardised ingot is the smelting and refining capacity in between, which is why a new mine does not by itself produce new antimony metal.

The United States recorded no mine production in 2024 and withheld its 2025 figure. One domestic company began mining antimony in Montana during 2025, and the USGS separately records that mining started at the Stibnite Hill Mine in Montana in November; the agency names neither company, and its second reference describes a different company from the Idaho one; what both establish is a first year of American mine supply. Primary metal and oxide were still made by a single Montana operation working from imported feedstock, at 700 tonnes of primary smelter output against 3,500 tonnes of secondary. The country’s primary antimony in 2025 was metal that had crossed a border as ore or oxide before it was refined.

Reserves concentrate in the same places as production. China holds 830,000 tonnes of a world total above 2 million tonnes, Russia 350,000, Bolivia 310,000, Kyrgyzstan 260,000 and Burma 140,000. The U.S. entry of 60,000 tonnes corresponds to the Idaho project’s company-reported probable reserve, which is why a country with one operating mine appears in the reserves column at a scale set by a project that has not yet produced.

Nothing in the USGS tariff table ranks as a barrier: ore and concentrates, antimony oxide, unwrought metal and powder, waste and scrap, and articles are all listed at free under normal trade relations as of 31 December 2025. Substitution is possible but narrow: the USGS names selected organic compounds and hydrated aluminium oxide as flame-retardant substitutes, and combinations of calcium, copper, selenium, sulfur and tin for lead-acid battery alloys.

Why capacity figures for antimony are hard to compare across countries, and what a supplier can actually document, is the subject of the suppliers section.

Six questions an antimony certificate does not answer

None of the six questions below can be settled by the assay number at the top of a certificate of analysis. Each has a documentary answer, and each is a place where a purchase goes wrong.

1. Gross weight or contained antimony? A tonne of 60% concentrate and a tonne of metal are the same word and different quantities. Multiply by assay before comparing anything.
2. Which grade is the price quoted on, and is it delivered? The published series is 99.65% minimum, cost, insurance and freight. A price for a higher grade on a free-on-board basis is a different object and needs its own conversion.
3. For oxide, what are the arsenic and lead limits in parts per million? A 99.5% minimum says nothing about either, and the space between grades is entirely in those two columns.
4. What is the average particle size, and how does the material behave on tint? Two lots at the same assay can sit at different particle sizes, which changes dispersion and colour in a pigmented compound.
5. Does the lot fall above the 99.99% oxide line, and is the metal or ore behind it already licensed? Below the line the oxide is not on the list; the feedstock that made it may be.
6. Is the metal primary or secondary, and what are the bismuth, copper and selenium figures? Secondary antimonial lead is a legitimate 12% of U.S. supply and carries a different impurity profile from primary metal.

A seventh question belongs to the price rather than the material: which month is the number from. On a series that more than doubled in a year, a stale quotation is not a cautious one.

Methodology

Production, trade, price, reserve and tariff figures are the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 chapter for antimony, published in February 2026, which reports 2025 as an estimate throughout and attributes its price basis to Argus Media. Per-tonne prices, the contained-antimony figure for the Idaho project and the percentage changes in the consumption section are this page’s arithmetic from published inputs (dollars per pound x 2,204.62; 14,000,000 tons x 0.42%), and are labelled as such where they appear. Oxide grade specifications are one producer’s published datasheets, read in November 2026, and describe that producer’s range rather than an industry standard. Chinese instruments are cited by number and date, and the repeal of Announcement No. 33 is taken from the annex to Announcement No. 51. No live price is used.

Sources

U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Antimony, February 2026. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-antimony.pdf

商务部、海关总署公告 2024 年第 33 号（对锑等物项实施出口管制），2024-08-15 发布，2024-09-15 施行，2024-12-01 废止。 https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zcfb/blgg/gg/2024/art/2024/art_6a472deaa37b46ccb04d4d8696fd8e75.html

商务部、工业和信息化部、海关总署、国家密码局公告 2024 年第 51 号（发布《两用物项出口管制清单》），2024-12-01 施行；附件 2 为同日废止的公告清单。 https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zcfb/dwmygl/art/2024/art_e56833e346534981b250bae772d0cbce.html

商务部公告 2024 年第 46 号（加强相关两用物项对美国出口管制），2024-12-03。 https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zwgk/zcfb/art/2024/art_3d5e990b43424e60828030f58a547b60.html

商务部公告 2025 年第 72 号（调整实施 2024 年第 46 号公告），2025-11-09，第二款暂停至 2026-11-27。 https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zwgk/zcfb/art/2025/art_5c68985a6b1a46778e2e8dbff1bb1601.html

GB/T 1599-2014 锑锭（Antimony ingot），牌号 Sb99.90、Sb99.70、Sb99.65、Sb99.50。 https://www.chinesestandard.net/PDF.aspx/GBT1599-2014

Amspec Chemical Corporation，antimony trioxide 牌号数据页（KR、LTS、Select、SP），2026-11 读取。 https://www.amspec.net/products/flame-retardants/kr-antimony-trioxide/ https://www.amspec.net/products/flame-retardants/select-antimony-trioxide/