Scandium: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Scandium is produced in tiny amounts as a by-product of titanium dioxide, nickel laterite, uranium and rare earth processing, mainly in China, Russia and the Philippines. Buyers of aluminium-scandium alloys and fuel cell electrolytes negotiate private deals, so prices are opaque.
No public price Scandium has no public monthly price series: Tiny by-product market on private deals; no public monthly price series.What its price moves with
Small additions of scandium make aluminium alloys stronger and easier to weld, useful in aircraft, additive manufacturing and sports goods. Wider use is held back by scarce, costly supply, so scandium demand would rise sharply if steady output were assured.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Waste acid and residues from titanium dioxide pigment plants contain scandium, and several Chinese plants recover it. Supply therefore depends on pigment production and on whether recovery pays, not on scandium demand alone.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.High-pressure acid leaching of nickel laterite ores, as in the Philippines and Indonesia, leaves scandium in solution that can be recovered. Expansion of these nickel plants for battery demand could become the largest new scandium source.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Scandium is grouped with the rare earths and is recovered from some rare earth tailings in China. Chinese policy on rare earth mining quotas and export licences therefore also affects how much scandium reaches buyers elsewhere.
No public price for rare earths, so the link is explained in words only.Scandium-stabilised zirconia is an electrolyte in solid oxide fuel cells, which run at high temperature on gas or hydrogen. Orders for these fuel cells are a key demand driver for the oxide.
No public price for fuel cells, so the link is explained in words only.How to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.