Germanium

Primary uses. fiber-optic networks; infrared imaging optics; solar cells; polymerization catalysts.

The chain — from the ground to the buyer

A critical material passes through distinct stages, and the country that leads each stage is often different — that gap is what this atlas exists to show. Each layer comes from a different public source with its own vintage, labelled below; shares are % of the world total.

● Reserves — where it could come from

Reserves are the deposits known to exist and economically worth mining — the long-run ceiling on supply, distinct from what is actually produced today. USGS does not publish country-level reserves for germanium — typically because it is a by-product of another ore or is drawn from an effectively unlimited source (e.g. quartz, seawater), so a national reserve map does not apply. USGS 2024 · reserves as of 2023

not available

● Mined — where it is dug up today

Mining is where ore leaves the ground — the stage most people equate with “the source”, though it is rarely where the supply risk actually concentrates. Output is concentrated: 🇨🇳 China supplies 68%, with 🇷🇺 Russia (5%) next. That is effectively a single-country dependence — one government's policy or one region's disruption can move the entire upstream. And the tap is politically live: China export licensing (Aug 2023). USGS 2024 · 2023 production

● Refined / processed — where it becomes usable metal

Refining / processing converts ore into the metal or compound buyers actually purchase; it concentrates in fewer hands than mining and sits at the buyer's doorstep, which is why it is usually the true chokepoint. 🇨🇳 China processes 81% — highly concentrated. China leads both mining and refining, so its grip is structural rather than a pure processing gate. This leverage is not hypothetical — China export licensing (Aug 2023). On the buffers: 2% of supply is recovered from end-of-life recycling and substitutes are scarce, while the US imports >50% of what it consumes. Interval 68-94%, both ends dated; no current world total exists. LOW END 68% (2020), printed: USGS Minerals Yearbook 2023, germanium, table 1 - China 95,000 kg of 140,000 kg world refinery production (2020) = 68%; every figure in that table is flagged estimated and 2021-23 are NA, with the text saying reliable estimates could not be made and world output was put at 100,000-200,000 kg. HIGH END 94% (2024): the BGS three-reporter table - a share of reporters, not of world output. Deleting the "other" line (Belgium, Canada, Germany; US excluded) from the same 2020 row gives 95,000/100,000 = 95% - which is structurally where a 94% comes from, because the BGS cells have no "other" row to carry. BGS 2024 covers 3 reporters only (CN 200 t, US 7 t, RU 5 t) and its China cell alone is 1.4x the whole USGS world estimate, so the numerators are not the same object. USGS publishes no China share of its own. Where a single number is unavoidable (the supply-risk index), 81 is used: the midpoint of the two dated anchors, reproducible from them.

● Recycling & substitutability — the mitigants (EU CRM)

2% of supply comes from recycling end-of-life products. Substitutability is high — few or no alternatives, so a disruption bites hard.

● Traded — who ships it

Actual bilateral trade of the traded form, reconciled from UN Comtrade / CEPII BACI. Pick a year below — 2018–2024 measured, 2025* nowcast, 2026** directional scenario. The full 2002–2026 range is on the interactive atlas.

Context

The cleanest member-state trap: the naive view points at Belgium (Umicore's Antwerp refining hub - a processing/transit artefact), while the corrected view shows China at ~83%.

Every figure on this page is computed from out/data.json and out/flows_2024.json by build_profiles.py — no hand-entered numbers.