Mining
11 Things Every Metal Investor Needs to Know About Zinc
Certain commodities tend to fly under the radar for periods of time.
For example, it was only in the last couple of years that markets have been able to digest the potential impact of the electric vehicle boom, and what it may mean for raw materials. The lithium, graphite, and cobalt prices reacted accordingly, and suddenly these essential ingredients for lithium-ion batteries were hot commodities.
Another one of those metals that comes and goes is zinc – and after shooting up in price over 35% this year, it definitely has the attention of many investors and speculators again.
Re-Thinking Zinc
Today’s infographic comes to us from Pistol Bay Mining, a company that is too focusing on zinc, and it highlights 11 things that investors need to know about a metal that is gaining substantial momentum.
Here’s why the metal is back in fashion:
1. Zinc is a $34 billion per year market.
It’s bigger than the silver ($18 billion), platinum ($8 billion), and molybdenum ($5 billion) markets combined. In fact, it is the fourth-most used metal worldwide.
2. Zinc smelting and production technology came way later than it did for other metals.
The ancients were able to smelt copper, lead, and iron, but it wasn’t until much later that people were able to work with zinc in any isolated state.
3. Even despite this, it was a crucial metal for ancient peoples.
They would smelt zinc-rich copper ores to make brass, which was used for many different purposes including weaponry, ornaments, coins, and armor.
4. Zinc is also crucial to produce many alloys today.
For example, brass is used for musical instruments and hardware applications that must resist corrosion. Solder and nickel-silver are other important alloys.
5. The world’s first-ever battery used zinc as an anode.
The voltaic pile, made in 1799 by Alessandro Volta, used zinc and copper for electrodes with brine-soaked paper as an electrolyte.
6. The metal remains crucial for batteries today.
Zinc-air, silver-zinc, zinc-bromine, and alkaline batteries all use zinc, and they enable everything from hearing aids to military applications to be possible.
7. Galvanizing is still the most important use.
About 50% of the metal is used in galvanizing, which is essentially a way to coat steel or iron so that it doesn’t rust.
8. China is both a major producer and end-user.
China mined 37% of the world’s 13.4 million tonnes of zinc production in 2015. It consumed 47% of the world’s supply that same year.
9. Major mines have been shutting down.
In 2016, China ordered the shutdown of 26 lead and zinc mines in parts of the Hunan province for environmental reasons. Meanwhile, Ireland’s Lisheen Mine and Australia’s Century Mine both shut down last year after being depleted of resources. That takes 630,000 tonnes of annual production off the table.
10. Stockpiles are dwindling.
Warehouse levels are less than half of where they were in 2013.
11. Zinc has been one of the best performing metals in 2016 in terms of price.
It started the year around $0.70/lb, but now it trades for $1.04/lb.
Uranium
Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country
We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium reserves by country, with 3 countries accounting for more than half of total reserves.
Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
There can be a tendency to believe that uranium deposits are scarce from the critical role it plays in generating nuclear energy, along with all the costs and consequences related to the field.
But uranium is actually fairly plentiful: it’s more abundant than gold and silver, for example, and about as present as tin in the Earth’s crust.
We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium resources by country, as of 2021. Figures come from the World Nuclear Association, last updated on August 2023.
Ranked: Uranium Reserves By Country (2021)
Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada have the largest shares of available uranium resources—accounting for more than 50% of total global reserves.
But within these three, Australia is the clear standout, with more than 1.7 million tonnes of uranium discovered (28% of the world’s reserves) currently. Its Olympic Dam mine, located about 600 kilometers north of Adelaide, is the the largest single deposit of uranium in the world—and also, interestingly, the fourth largest copper deposit.
Despite this, Australia is only the fourth biggest uranium producer currently, and ranks fifth for all-time uranium production.
Country | Share of Global Reserves | Uranium Reserves (Tonnes) |
---|---|---|
🇦🇺 Australia | 28% | 1.7M |
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan | 13% | 815K |
🇨🇦 Canada | 10% | 589K |
🇷🇺 Russia | 8% | 481K |
🇳🇦 Namibia | 8% | 470K |
🇿🇦 South Africa | 5% | 321K |
🇧🇷 Brazil | 5% | 311K |
🇳🇪 Niger | 5% | 277K |
🇨🇳 China | 4% | 224K |
🇲🇳 Mongolia | 2% | 145K |
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan | 2% | 131K |
🇺🇦 Ukraine | 2% | 107K |
🌍 Rest of World | 9% | 524K |
Total | 100% | 6M |
Figures are rounded.
Outside the top three, Russia and Namibia both have roughly the same amount of uranium reserves: about 8% each, which works out to roughly 470,000 tonnes.
South Africa, Brazil, and Niger all have 5% each of the world’s total deposits as well.
China completes the top 10, with a 3% share of uranium reserves, or about 224,000 tonnes.
A caveat to this is that current data is based on known uranium reserves that are capable of being mined economically. The total amount of the world’s uranium is not known exactly—and new deposits can be found all the time. In fact the world’s known uranium reserves increased by about 25% in the last decade alone, thanks to better technology that improves exploration efforts.
Meanwhile, not all uranium deposits are equal. For example, in the aforementioned Olympic Dam, uranium is recovered as a byproduct of copper mining occurring at the same site. In South Africa, it emerges as a byproduct during treatment of ores in the gold mining process. Orebodies with high concentrations of two substances can increase margins, as costs can be shared for two different products.
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