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Titanium

America’s ‘Invisible Aircraft’- As Russia Controls Titanium Supply Chain, How US Secretly Sourced This Mineral To Build The Blackbird – by Tanmay Kadam (EurAsian Times – March 28, 2022)

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The Russia-Ukraine war has the aerospace companies worried as it may disrupt the supply of titanium, a key mineral used in the manufacture of various components of modern aircraft.

Kevin Michaels, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, a supply-chain consulting firm, has sounded an alarm by saying that Russian President Putin can shut down the commercial aerospace business if he chooses to do so.

VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation based in Verkhnyaya Salda, Russia, is the world’s largest titanium producer. It supplies 30-35% of the titanium used by the aviation sector globally. Aerospace giants such as Boeing and Airbus are heavily dependent on Russian titanium.

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COLUMN-U.S. looks beyond tariffs to secure critical titanium supply – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – March 13, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, March 13 (Reuters) – First there was steel. Then there was aluminium. Now titanium joins the list of metals found to be threatening the national security of the United States.

The U.S. Commerce Department launched a so-called Section 232 investigation into titanium sponge imports in March last year and submitted it to the White House in November.

Commerce found that U.S. import dependency, amounting to 68% of the country’s consumption in 2018, threatens the viability of the last U.S. producer of this intermediate form of a metal critical to both civilian and military aircraft manufacturers. President Donald Trump agrees.

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