Where does beryllium come from?

Unwrought beryllium trade is almost a single corridor. In 2024 the flow from Kazakhstan to China was worth $22.8 million, 83% of the world's $27.4 million trade in unwrought beryllium and powders (HS 811212) and the highest top-corridor share among the 109 commodity trade lines in the site's bilateral table (CEPII BACI, our arithmetic). Kazakhstan supplied 89% of world export value and China took 86% of import value. The United States, the only market in the supplier exposure report for this line, bought all of its imports from Kazakhstan. USGS lists no Kazakh mine output, and the trade map is 2.2 times as concentrated as the mining map: an HHI of 7,998 on export value shares against 3,615 on production shares (our arithmetic; see supply concentration).

In this line, weight and value tell opposite stories. Kazakhstan shipped 25 tonnes in 2024 yet took 89% of export value, while Madagascar and Luxembourg together shipped 89% of the weight but 2.1% of the value (our arithmetic on CEPII BACI). Among the 15 largest exporters and 15 largest importers, declared values ran from $362 to $2,064,462 per tonne, a spread of more than 5,000 times within one customs code, so the line's $39,728 world average per tonne describes few of its flows. The data do not show what the heavy, low-value shipments are, so summing tonnes across exporters would add unlike cargoes.

Beryllium's flat production table hides a small puzzle. USGS prints 430 tonnes for 2025, -1% on the 433 tonnes of 2024, yet the only country figure that moved was China's, from 78 to 77 tonnes. The other six, from United States's 230 tonnes down to the smallest producers, are identical in both years, and USGS labels 2025 as estimated. The seven country figures sum to 432 tonnes, so the printed world total is rounded and a few tonnes either way is within that rounding (USGS MCS 2026, our arithmetic on the country sum).

In 2025 United States was the largest producer in the data, with 230 tonnes of beryllium content, 53% of the world's 430 tonnes (USGS MCS). Brazil followed with 80 tonnes (19%) and China with 77 tonnes (18%), so those three account for 90% of the total. Nigeria comes next with 9.3%, and Mozambique, Madagascar and Rwanda are credited with 0.7%, 0.2% and 0.2%. 7 countries are listed, and world output changed -1% on the previous year.

The ranking is unusual because of what is mined where. USGS says one company in Utah mined bertrandite ore and converted it, along with imported beryl, into beryllium hydroxide. The ore comes from an epithermal deposit in the Spor Mountain area, which USGS describes as a large bertrandite resource that is being mined, and USGS adds that the United States has very little beryl that can be economically hand sorted from pegmatite deposits. The USGS chapter does not name the company. Materion's annual report for 2025 describes the world's largest bertrandite ore mine and refinery as located in Utah, supplying hydroxide to its own beryllium businesses and for sale.

The table needs careful reading. USGS labels the 2025 column as estimated and says it made significant revisions to the 2024 figures for Mozambique, Nigeria and the United States. It notes that Kazakhstan and Portugal may have produced beryl ore, but that information was inadequate to estimate their output, so neither appears in the table. USGS's footnote says the figures are based on a 4% beryllium content of bertrandite and beryl sources, and the basis for each country's figure is not stated. The country figures add to slightly more than the rounded world total, which is why the shares sum to a little over 100%.

USGS publishes no reserves figures in its data table for beryllium. In the text beside the table it says that proven and probable bertrandite reserves in Utah total about 19,000 tons of beryllium content, and that world beryllium reserves were not available. This page therefore carries no reserves table and no world reserves total. USGS does estimate world identified resources at more than 100,000 tons, with about 60% in the United States, mostly in Utah, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas and Alaska.

The only customs line this site tracks for beryllium is HS 811212, unwrought beryllium (HS 811212). It covers unwrought metal and powders. It does not cover ore, oxide and hydroxide, beryllium-copper master alloy, beryllium-copper strip, scrap or finished parts, which USGS lists under other US tariff lines. A leading exporter on this line therefore says nothing about who mines beryllium.

In 2024 Kazakhstan was the largest exporter of this line with 89% of world export value ($24.4 million), ahead of France (5.9%), Madagascar (1.6%), the United States (1.2%) and Luxembourg (0.5%), on total world trade of $27.4 million (CEPII BACI). On the import side China took 86%, ahead of the United States (6.1%), Germany (4.9%) and Spain (1%).

The line is both small and concentrated. At $27.4 million the whole world's trade in it is small next to the roughly $360 million that USGS puts on US apparent beryllium consumption in 2025, though the two measure different things. One exporter holds most of the value, so the ranking beyond first place rests on small sums: Madagascar is third at $433,010 and the United States fourth at $335,764.

The leader does not appear in the mining table, because USGS could not estimate any output for Kazakhstan. The Ulba Metallurgical Plant, whose voting shares are all held by Kazatomprom, lists beryllium metal, billets and copper-beryllium master alloys among its products, but the customs data cannot say where any feedstock came from. The United States, the largest producer in the data, takes only 6.1% of imports on this line and sends out 1.2% of exports. USGS reports that US imports in 2021 to 2024 came 31% from Kazakhstan, 25% from Latvia and 19% from Japan, but that count combines ore, hydroxide, metal, alloy and articles, so it is not comparable to this line. By weight the line looks different from its value: the largest shipments by weight are from Luxembourg and Madagascar, whose declared values are very low per kilogram, and Kazakhstan's share is a share of value only. The data do not say what those heavy shipments were. USGS also lists a normal trade relations tariff of 8.5% on unwrought beryllium (HS 8112.12.0000) as of 31 December 2025; this is the base rate only and does not include any additional US duties.

This page quotes no beryllium price, because there is no free public series for it on this site. USGS does report a price statistic, but it is a derived figure: an annual average unit value of beryllium-copper master alloy in dollars per kilogram of contained beryllium, calculated from the gross weight and customs value of imports, with the beryllium content estimated at 4%. It is an average of import documents, not a quote a buyer could trade against. USGS shows it more than doubling between 2022 and 2023 and gives no explanation in the chapter.

USGS says the cost of beryllium is high compared with other materials, so it is used only where its properties are crucial. It is sold as several different products, including alloy strip and bulk products, unalloyed metal, composites, oxide and hydroxide, and a price for one form says little about another. The customs value of the unwrought metal line on this page ($27.4 million for the world) is not a market price either. How contracts are written is not published in the sources used here.

USGS estimates from sales revenues that about 24% of beryllium products were used in aerospace and defense applications in 2025, and says most unalloyed beryllium metal and beryllium composite products went to defense and scientific uses. It also says the US Department of War supports the availability of domestic beryllium to meet critical defense needs. NASA lists the James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror, with 18 segments, as beryllium coated with gold.

According to USGS, about 29% of beryllium product sales went to consumer electronics and about 9% to automotive electronics in 2025. USGS reports that the leading US producer's net sales in the first half of 2025 were about the same as a year earlier overall, with decreases in the automotive electronics, consumer electronics and life sciences end markets.

USGS says one company in Utah mined bertrandite ore and converted it into hydroxide, some of which went to the company's plant in Ohio. The American mining figure is therefore the output of a single company, not a national aggregate of many operators. USGS also reports that a 2010 public-private partnership under the Defense Production Act reestablished domestic production of beryllium metal.

USGS notes that because beryllium is toxic, regulations cover beryllium in air, water and other media, and industry must carefully control dust, fumes and mists. OSHA's final beryllium rule was published on 9 January 2017 and, after two delays, took effect on 20 May 2017. It set an eight-hour exposure limit of 0.2 micrograms per cubic meter and a 15-minute limit of 2.0, citing increased risk of chronic beryllium disease and lung cancer at the earlier limits.

USGS says recycled beryllium may account for as much as 20% to 25% of total beryllium consumption, though quantities were not available. USGS says the leading US producer managed a recycling program in 2025, recovering approximately 40% of the beryllium content of new and old beryllium alloy scrap.

USGS lists substitutes for beryllium metal and composites, including certain composites, high-strength aluminum, pyrolytic graphite, silicon carbide, steel and titanium. For beryllium-copper it lists other copper alloys, such as phosphor bronze, though it says substitution can substantially reduce performance.

Beryllium is on the 2025 US critical minerals list, which the Interior Department and USGS released in November 2025 with 60 minerals, and on the European Commission's 2023 list of 34 critical raw materials. A listing is a government assessment, and this page does not claim a shortage.

Los Alamos National Laboratory says beryllium is found in some 30 minerals, with beryl and bertrandite its most important commercial sources. USGS describes the American chain in three steps. A company in Utah mines bertrandite ore and, with imported beryl, converts it into beryllium hydroxide. Some hydroxide is shipped to the company's plant in Ohio, where it is converted into metal, oxide and beryllium-copper master alloy, and some is sold.

Separately, Materion, which describes its Utah operation as the world's largest bertrandite ore mine and refinery, says in its 2025 annual report that its Elmore, Ohio plant relies on that mining operation for beryllium hydroxide. The USGS chapter does not name the company, and this page does not equate the two.

USGS says beryllium alloy strip and bulk products are the most common forms of processed beryllium and are used in all application areas, while most unalloyed beryllium metal and composite products are used in defense and science.

Los Alamos National Laboratory describes beryllium as one of the lightest metals and much stiffer than steel. It was first identified in 1798 and first isolated, as small grains of metal, around 1828, and the laboratory says beryllium metal did not become widely available to industry until 1957. The mine figures on this page are beryllium content, not ore tonnage.

USGS gives end-use shares based on sales revenues for 2025. About 29% of beryllium products were used in consumer electronics, 24% in aerospace and defense, 17% in industrial components, 9% in automotive electronics, 8% in energy applications, 2% in semiconductor applications, and 11% in other applications. These are shares of sales revenue, not of tonnage.

Alloy strip and bulk products are the most common form. Los Alamos names springs and tools among the uses of beryllium-copper alloys, and lists aerospace parts, nuclear technology, X-ray windows, particle detectors and structural materials for spacecraft and high-speed aircraft among the uses of the metal. NASA lists the Webb telescope's primary mirror as 18 beryllium segments coated with gold.

The chain runs from bertrandite or beryl to hydroxide, from hydroxide to metal, oxide or master alloy, and from there to strip, bulk products and components. The mining is led by the United States in the data, trade in unwrought metal is led by Kazakhstan with 89% of export value, and China takes 86% of imports of that metal. Each fact concerns a different stage, so they should not be added together into a single ranking. For the United States, USGS reports that apparent consumption in 2025 was 230 metric tons and that the country was a net exporter in 2023, 2024 and 2025, but notes that from 2023 it no longer includes government stock changes in apparent consumption.

Outside the US the sources used here show little. Kazakhstan has a producer, Ulba, and USGS says Kazakhstan may have produced beryl. China is credited with 18% of mining and 86% of imports of unwrought metal, and the sources do not show who supplies it, so this page does not say.

That is the critical-mineral question for beryllium: not whether the metal is rare, since USGS estimates identified resources above 100,000 tons, but where each step is done, and USGS's statement that one company mined and processed the American supply. Beryllium is on the 2025 US critical minerals list and on the EU's 2023 list. The critical minerals hub explains what those lists are, and the glossary entry defines the term. See also tungsten, another minor metal.