Bismuth: Trading
A classic minor metal, sold through merchants on contract
What this tab covers How and where it is bought and sold: who buys and sells, exchanges and benchmarks, contract types, the big trading houses and how prices are discovered.Bismuth has no exchange contract. It is a classic minor metal, sold by Chinese refiners and Japanese and Korean smelters to merchants and to chemical, pharmaceutical and alloy makers. Contracts reference agency prices. USGS uses Fastmarkets' quote for 99.99% metal in warehouse Rotterdam, in minimum lots of one tonne. The market is small: world bismuth sales were about $213 million in 2014 (Tilton & Guzmán, pdf p. 24). With so little volume, one exporter's licensing decision can reprice the whole market.
Where it is bought (buyers)
- Chemical and pharmaceutical makers in the US, Germany, Japan and India buy metal and oxide (US 24.2%, Germany 16.8%, China 12.7%, India 6.6% of HS 8106 imports by value in 2024, Comtrade)
- Brass, solder and fusible-alloy makers buy 99.99% ingot and needles
Where it is sold (sellers)
- Chinese refiners sell under export licences (China 44.4% of world HS 8106 exports by value in 2024, Comtrade)
- Korean, Japanese, Lao and Kazakh producers sell smaller volumes; Korea supplied 22% of US imports in 2021-24 (USGS)
- Belgian, German and US firms re-export refined metal and chemicals
Exchanges and benchmarks
| Venue | Contract | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| None for physical delivery outside China | No LME, CME or MCX contract | China's Fanya exchange collapsed in 2015; China's Zhonglianjin platform traded March 2025 contracts that hit daily limits (Argus) |
Contract types
- Spot lots of 99.99% metal in-warehouse Rotterdam (minimum 1 t)
- Term contracts with chemical and pharmaceutical buyers
- Chinese export licences per shipment since February 2025
Top trading houses
- Specialist minor-metal traders in Europe and China; names not published in the sources used
How prices are discovered
- Fastmarkets bismuth 99.99% in-warehouse Rotterdam ($/lb), China (yuan/t) and bismuth oxide CIF Rotterdam; US bismuth pricing launched in May 2026
- Argus European and Chinese assessments
- Asian Metal Chinese prices