According to a recent report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. mines churned out $82.8 billion worth of minerals in 2018.
The 2018 total marked a 3% year-over-year increase from $79.7 billion in 2017, according to the report from the USGS National Minerals Information Center.
“The Mineral Commodity Summaries provide crucial, unbiased statistics that decision-makers and policy-makers in both the private and public sectors rely on to make business decisions and national policy,” said Steven M. Fortier, director of the National Mineral Information Center, in a prepared statement. “Industries – such as steel, aerospace and electronics – processed nonfuel mineral materials and created an estimated $3.02 trillion in value-added products in 2018, which is a 6 percent increase over 2017.”
The report highlights the U.S.’s dependence on foreign sources for a number of minerals. According to the report, “imports made up more than half of U.S apparent consumption for 48 nonfuel mineral commodities, and the U.S. was 100 percent net import reliant for 18 of those.”
Of the 18 commodities for which the U.S. is totally reliant on imports, 14 were named on a critical minerals list designated in May 2018 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The full list of critical minerals included: aluminum (bauxite), antimony, arsenic, barite, beryllium, bismuth, cesium, chromium, cobalt, fluorspar, gallium, germanium, graphite (natural), hafnium, helium, indium, lithium, magnesium, manganese, niobium, platinum group metals, potash, the rare earth elements group, rhenium, rubidium, scandium, strontium, tantalum, tellurium, tin, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, and zirconium.
China topped the list of exporters of nonfuel minerals to the U.S., followed by Canada. As noted in our Rare Earths MMI series, the U.S. — the whole world, in fact — is largely dependent on China for rare earths elements, as China controls most of the sector.
Unsurprisingly, when it came time for the Trump administration to roll out a finalized list of tariffs in September — $200 billion worth in tariffs on Chinese goods, in addition to the $50 billion worth of tariffs imposed earlier in 2018 — rare earths were left off the list.
While it certainly is not enough to counterbalance China’s dominance in the sector, the USGS report notes rare earth mining resumed in the U.S. last year for the first time since 2015, when Molycorp, owner of the Mountain Pass rare earths mine, declared bankruptcy. Mountain Pass, the U.S.’s only operating rare earths mine, was eventually sold to MP Mine Operations LLC for $20.5 million in 2017.
Minerals Production Up, Metal Mine Production Down
Breaking down U.S. mine production further, U.S. industrial minerals production came in at a value of $56.3 billion last year (up 7% from 2017), while metal mine production checked in at an estimated $25.9 billion (down 4% from 2017).
Crushed stone, construction sand and gravel accounted for 45% of industrial minerals production, at a value of $25.3 billion. Meanwhile, gold, copper, iron ore and zinc led the way in metal mines production.
Other Highlights
A few other items of note from the USGS report:
- U.S. imports of aluminum fell by an estimated 11% last year, as the U.S.’s Section 232 tariff on imported aluminum went into effect. Argentina and Australia were exempted from the duty (Argentina was tagged with a quota), while the tariff rate for Turkish aluminum doubled amid diplomatic tensions last year.
- A New York zinc mine, last operational in 2008, reopened last year.
- Twelve states produced more than $2 billion worth of nonfuel mineral commodities in 2018, according to the report. The list includes, in descending order: Nevada, Arizona, Texas, California, Minnesota, Florida, Alaska, Utah, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan and Wyoming.
by Fouad Egbaria