Strontium: Trading
Bulk contracts for ore, specialty sales for chemicals
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.There is no exchange. Celestite trades under bulk supply contracts between miners and drilling-fluid or chemical companies. Strontium carbonate and nitrate are sold as specialty chemicals by a few producers. Tilton and Guzmán put world strontium sales at only about $16 million in 2014, among the smallest mineral markets (pdf p. 25). Prices are negotiated privately, with occasional assessments in industrial-mineral publications. Buyers can shift some demand to barite in drilling mud.
Where it is bought (buyers)
- Drilling-fluid companies in the US buy ground celestite from Mexico
- Ferrite magnet makers in China, Japan, Korea and Europe buy strontium carbonate
- Pyrotechnic makers (including India's Sivakasi cluster) and defence suppliers buy strontium nitrate
Where it is sold (sellers)
- Iran, Spain and China sell celestite; Spain supplies 99% of EU celestite needs (EU CRM 2023)
- Chinese, Mexican, German and Iranian plants sell strontium carbonate; US compound imports came from Germany 51% and Mexico 41% (2021-24)
- Mexico supplied more than 99% of US celestite imports (2021-24)
Exchanges and benchmarks
| Venue | Contract | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| None | No exchange contract | Celestite and strontium compounds trade bilaterally; no Indian venue lists them |
Contract types
- Annual or quarterly supply contracts for carbonate
- Spot cargoes of celestite priced per tonne FOB
- Specification-based defence contracts for nitrate and peroxide
Top trading houses
- No major trading house is prominent; chemical distributors and producers sell directly
How prices are discovered
- Chinese domestic chemical price services
- US Census import unit values (summarised by USGS)
- Industrial minerals trade press