The price of gallium has been rising ever since China started restricting exports of the exotic metal in August 2023. This is not surprising since China has a near monopoly on global gallium production, just as it does across the critical materials spectrum.
How much should we care that the price of something most people have never heard of is trading at 14-year highs? After all, global production last year was just 760 metric tons, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Even at today’s elevated prices the world market’s nominal value is a modest $550 million.
The metal is used in such tiny quantities that there is zero impact on the cost of a mobile phone or an electric vehicle. However, if you’re in the semiconductor business it matters a lot. And it matters even more to US defence planners, which is why China chose element number 31 as a metallic pressure point in the first place.
For the rest of this column: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/gallium-lens-chinas-minerals-dominance-how-break-it-andy-home-2025-05-09/