Tellurium — Structural brief
How the supply chain for this commodity is shaped: where it is mined, where it is processed, and which step is the bottleneck.
At a glance
- Largest producer
- China 80%
- USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026
- Top 3 producers
- 92%
- share of world output
- Concentration (HHI)
- 6,498
- highly concentrated
- Producing countries
- 6
- 1 supply half
- Export measures
- 1
- USGS compilation, Jan 2026
Key findings
What the evidence shows
World production and the largest producer
Country figures published by the USGS add up to 1,000 metric tons refined metal. China is the largest producer with 80% of the total.
How concentrated supply is
The Herfindahl-Hirschman index over country shares is 6,498 (highly concentrated). The top three producers hold 92%; 1 country supplies half.
Export measures in force
1 measure bears on this mineral: China.
In this report
The questions it answers
Supply
Who produces it
Below 1,500 is read as unconcentrated and above 2,500 as highly concentrated (US merger-review bands, used as a reference point).
Trade
Export measures in force
| Country | Measure |
|---|---|
| China | China maintains an export licensing requirement for materials and technologies covering Antimony (2024), bismuth (2025), synthesized diamond (2025), gallium (2023), germanium (2023), graphite (2023), indium (2025), magnesium materials (2024), molybdenum (2025), rare earths (2025), silver (2026), tellurium (2025), tungsten (2025), and items related to lithium batteries and artificial graphite anode materials (2025), as compiled by the USGS from official and reported sources effective January 2026. |
Full analysis and cited sources
Why tellurium is listed
The final 2025 United States List of Critical Minerals and India's 2023 list of critical minerals name tellurium. A listing is a statement by a government that supply of the material is both economically essential and exposed to disruption, and it is what brings the commodity inside the scope of procurement rules, stockpiling programmes and permitting reform. 2025-11-07: Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals.[1]
Where it is counted in the published statistics
Tellurium carries no production series by country in the evidence base. Published statistics for it are reported as trade and consumption rather than as mine output, which is the usual position for a material recovered as a by-product of refining another metal.
United States import dependence
The principal sources of United States imports over 2021–24 were Canada at 64 percent, Philippines at 14 percent, Japan at 8 percent and Germany at 5 percent[2]. Import shares describe where material crossed the border, which for a refined or separated product is where it was last processed rather than where it was mined.
Trade measures in force
The USGS compilation of export controls effective January 2026 records one measure bearing on tellurium. China maintains an export licensing requirement for materials and technologies covering Antimony (2024), bismuth (2025), synthesized diamond (2025), gallium (2023), germanium (2023), graphite (2023), indium (2025), magnesium materials (2024), molybdenum (2025), rare earths (2025), silver (2026), tellurium (2025), tungsten (2025), and items related to lithium batteries and artificial graphite anode materials (2025), as compiled by the USGS from official and reported sources effective January 2026.[3] A measure framed around a group or a product class reaches tellurium even where no measure names it, which is the common case for materials that are separated rather than mined.
What the evidence base does not yet hold
No production series by country is held for tellurium, so there is no supply model for it and no concentration index computed from its own output. Filling that would take mine or refinery output by producing country, ownership and capacity at the separation or refining step and a customs heading that carries it without mixing it into a wider class. Until those exist, everything above is what the public record supports, and nothing on this page is estimated to cover the gap. The paid bands are not offered for tellurium while that remains true.
Tellurium Beneficiation & Cash Flow Simulator
An illustrative model built on typical published cost ranges. Change feed grade and throughput to see how the margin moves.
The model runs in the Workbench: register free to run it 3 times a day.
Contractual Penalty Schedule & Deleterious Limits
Standard commercial deduction guidelines enforced by off-taker smelters and converters for non-compliant impurity concentrations:
Model Cargo Financing, CIF Arbitrage & Letter of Credit
Test physical maritime shipments, demurrage risk, hedging spreads, and working capital cash turns in the Trade Desk.
Operating Smelters & Processing Facilities
Facility records and processing directories are manually researched and maintained by MiningBridge analysts.
30-mineral criticality list (2023)
Executive Briefing & Strategic FAQ
Essential empirical supply-chain and geopolitical questions for market participants and intelligence analysts.
Which countries dominate global mining and refining for Tellurium?▼
Global Tellurium production is characterized by high geographical concentration in both raw extraction and chemical processing, as documented in MiningBridge's empirical supply-chain models.
What are the critical supply chain bottlenecks and geopolitical risks for Tellurium?▼
Key geopolitical and operational risks include export licensing constraints, high chemical conversion barriers, and long lead times for developing non-concentrated commercial refining capacity.
What are the primary commercial uses for Tellurium, and can it be substituted?▼
Tellurium is essential across energy transition, advanced electronics, and defense systems. While direct substitutes exist in select low-performance applications, replacing Tellurium in mission-critical hardware incurs significant metallurgical and cost trade-offs.