The price of Rhenium has risen sharply in recent months, triggered primarily by growing demand from China. The USA is reacting and planning to reclassify the raw material as a critical one.

The Rhenium price jump in the past weeks and months is primarily due to the increased demand from China. The country is currently expanding its state-subsidised aircraft industry. It has acquired large quantities of Rhenium for this purpose, which is used in the form of alloys in aircraft turbines. Another price driver is the upcoming elections in Chile, where mining is a central topic. The South American country is one of the world’s largest copper producers. Molybdenum is a by-product of copper mining, and molybdenum extraction in turn produces Rhenium. Chile, therefore, plays a key role in the global supply of the latter.

As the market is characterized by an annual production of around 62 tonnes, even small changes in demand have a noticeable effect on the supply situation and the price.

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Properties and Physical Behavior

What is rhenium? Rhenium is a rare, silvery-grey transition metal known for its extreme resistance to heat and wear. It boasts one of the highest melting points of all elements, second only to tungsten, making it indispensable in high-performance alloys.

What does rhenium look like? In its pure form, rhenium is a dense, silver-grey metal with a lustrous sheen. It often appears as a fine powder or in compacted pellet form when sold commercially.

What is rhenium’s melting point? Rhenium’s melting point is 3,186 °C (or 5,767 °F). This exceptional heat resistance is precisely why rhenium is highly prized in jet engines, gas turbines, and other environments with extreme temperatures.

What does rhenium react with? Rhenium is remarkably inert under normal conditions. It resists corrosion and doesn’t oxidise easily, even in air. However, at high temperatures, it can react with oxygen to form rhenium oxides.

Uses and Applications

What is rhenium used for in everyday life? While you won’t find rhenium in your kitchen drawer, it plays a vital role behind the scenes: in jet engine turbines, petrochemical refining, and X-ray machines. It’s one of the key enablers of modern aviation and energy systems.

What is rhenium found in? Rhenium is found in superalloys for jet and gas turbines, catalytic converters for oil refining, and thermocouples and filaments in high-temperature scientific equipment.

Why is rhenium so expensive?

Several factors contribute to rhenium’s high price:
– It’s one of the rarest elements on Earth.
– It cannot be mined directly.
– Its use in critical aerospace and energy infrastructure ensures constant demand.
– No known substitutes exist for its high-temperature properties.

Where is Rhenium Produced?

Rhenium is the rarest element naturally occurring in the earth’s crust, estimated to be found naturally in less than one part per billion. It must be extracted from ores, and approximately 80% of rhenium is mined from porphyry molybdenum deposits containing 0.001% to 0.2% rhenium.

Commercially speaking, rhenium is rare and expensive because it can be challenging to extract the rhenium from its ore form. The primary global producers are Chile, the US, Poland, China, and Russia. Annually, only about 40-50 tons (80,000- 100,000 lb) of rhenium is produced, and most of it comes from Chilean ores. An additional 25 tons of supply per year comes from scrap and recycling.

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China expands rhenium stock, and further areas of application are added.

The People’s Republic favours its own Chinese products in other industries, which is why, according to TRADIUM’s rhenium expert Frank Meier, this can also be expected in the aviation sector. “It is to be expected that China will strengthen its aviation industry in the long term and, as with rare earths, will also pursue a strategic agenda for rhenium,” Meier continues. A decline in demand is therefore unlikely. On the contrary, demand for the Chinese aviation industry will continue to rise in the future.

Demand is also growing outside China: Airbus and Boeing, for example, are forecasting demand of more than 40,000 new machines in the next 20 years. New fields of application are also emerging, such as in modern medical technology.

Substitution remains unrealistic:

There is no technological alternative to Rhenium in aviation. “There are no real opportunities for substitution in alloys that are used in turbine blades and housings. Doing without Rhenium there would mean a considerable step backwards in terms of quality,” says Meier.

Politicians and the market react to the current situation.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has discovered Rhenium in the draft of its new list of critical minerals recorded. This means that the raw material is now considered critical again after not being included in the two previous lists for 2022 and 2023. In principle, the USGS list has already included Rhenium since 2018. The EU Critical Raw Materials Act (Critical Raw Materials Act), which came into force in 2024, omits Rhenium among the raw materials that are of central importance to European industry.

Frank Meier is aware of this development: “In the USA, the market situation for Rhenium has already been recognised and the raw material has consequently been reclassified as critical. It is to be expected that Brussels will follow the USGS categorisation and also include Rhenium on its list of critical raw materials.”

Market remains tense:

The rhenium expert is sceptical when asked whether further sources of the limited raw material can be tapped in the near future: “For the time being, no further producers are expected on the market. However, existing suppliers are optimising their utilisation rates in order to extract even more Rhenium from the rock. Recycling is also becoming increasingly attractive and is being further expanded in order to obtain the sought-after raw material,” explains Meier.

However, these measures are insufficient to meet the rising demand, and a market deficit is expected to persist for the foreseeable future. For politicians and industry, this means Security of supply and recycling strategies continue to take centre stage.

Source: Tradium GmbH and Strategic Metals Invest