Where does boron come from?

Boron has three customs steps, and the export leader is read one step at a time. In 2024 the two largest exporters by value were, for natural borates, Turkey (Türkiye) (56%) and Bolivia (23%); for refined borax (HS 284019), Turkey (Türkiye) (64%) and United States (27%); and for boric acid and oxide (HS 281000), United States (34%) and Turkey (Türkiye) (21%). In the two remaining lines they were, for anhydrous borax, United States (55%) and Turkey (Türkiye) (33%), and for other borates, United States (21%) and China (17%). The order of countries differs from line to line, which is why this page reports each step separately.

The value is not evenly spread. Refined borax (HS 284019) was worth $1.2 billion, about 2.5 times the $456.8 million of natural borates, and boric acid and oxide at $656.6 million was about 1.4 times the natural line (our arithmetic on the unrounded customs values; the refined borax figure shown is rounded). The anhydrous borax and other-borates lines were worth $93.3 million and $180.9 million. The lines overlap, because a tonne of ore that becomes borax and then acid is counted at each step, so they cannot be added into one boron trade total.

The buyers add a second point. In 2024 the largest importer of refined borax was China (45%), of boric acid and oxide China (30%) and of other borates Canada (12%). The second-largest exporter of other borates was China (17%). Importers and exporters are not separate groups: a country can be on both sides of the trade, as the lists above show.

This page carries no production ranking and no world total, and the reason sits in the USGS table itself. The United States figure for boron production is withheld in every year from 2021 to 2025 to avoid disclosing company proprietary data, and USGS prints the world total as not applicable because production is not reported in a consistent manner by all countries (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). A ranking that left out the United States would not describe the world, and a total would add up quantities that are not the same thing.

The eight countries that do have a figure each report a different form. For 2025 USGS estimates Argentina at 170 thousand t of crude ore, Bolivia at 380 thousand t of ulexite, Chile at 300 thousand t of ulexite, China at 230 thousand t of boric oxide equivalent, Germany at 40 thousand t of compounds, Peru at 220 thousand t of crude borates, Russia at 80 thousand t of datolite ore and Turkey at 1.5 million t of refined borates (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). That is seven different labels. USGS says boron products are priced and sold on their boric oxide (B2O3) content, which varies with the ore and the compound, so a tonne of ulexite ore, a tonne of refined borate and a tonne of boric oxide equivalent contain different amounts of boron. Putting them in one column, ranking them or turning them into shares would produce numbers that look precise and mean nothing. USGS also says it made significant revisions to the 2024 figures for China, Peru and Turkey, which is a further reason to quote the table and not to compute from it.

The geology explains where the producers are. USGS says borate deposits are associated with volcanic activity and arid climates, and it places the largest economically viable ones in the Mojave Desert, in the Alpide belt, which runs along the southern margin of Eurasia, and in the Andes of South America (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). Four minerals, colemanite, kernite, tincal and ulexite, make up 90% of the borate minerals industry uses worldwide. In the United States the deposits are mainly tincal, kernite and borates held in brines. About 70% of the deposits in Turkey are colemanite. In 2025 three companies in southern California produced borates: the leading one mined borate ores by open pit, and two others extracted brines by solution mining. USGS does not name the companies. Rio Tinto's own resource statement of 19 February 2026 lists a 100%-owned open-pit borate operation in the United States with Ore Reserves of 12.0 million t of boric oxide in marketable product at 31 December 2025, located in the Kramer deposit near the town of Boron in the Mojave Desert (Rio Tinto ASX notice, 19 February 2026). This page does not claim that this is the company USGS describes.

Reserves are printed in the same mixed forms and carry the same warning. USGS gives the United States 48 million t of reserves with no form stated, Turkey 950 million t labeled refined borates, Russia 40 million t of datolite ore, Chile 35 million t of ulexite, China 9.1 million t of boric oxide equivalent and Peru 4 million t of crude borates, with Argentina, Bolivia and Germany not available (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). These are quoted with their forms and are not ranked or added. Turkey's Energy Minister said in September 2024 that the country holds 73% of the world's boron reserves (Daily Sabah, 15 September 2024). USGS publishes no world reserves total, so this page cannot check that share.

With production unranked, the origin picture here is built from exports, which record what actually crossed a border at each of three steps. An export table has its own bias: a country that turns most of its output into glass, ceramics or fertilizer at home looks small in it however much it mines. The three steps, and what each one shows, are set out below.

Boron moves through customs in three steps, and each has its own line. Natural borates and concentrates (HS 252800) are the mined material. Refined borax (HS 284011 for the anhydrous form and HS 284019 for the others) and other borates (HS 284020) are the products of a chemical plant. Boric acid and boron oxide (HS 281000) are a further conversion. The first step is mining and concentrating, the second is refining, and the third is making acid. The five lines are the whole of what this site tracks. Customs lines from the BACI database mix grades within a code, so every share below is a share of the line, not of all boron trade.

In 2024 the largest exporter of natural borates was Turkey (Türkiye) with 56% of the world's $456.8 million of export value (CEPII BACI), followed by Bolivia (23%), Argentina (7.8%), Austria (3%) and Chile (2.8%). The largest buyers were China (24%), Brazil (21%), India (10%) and United States (5.9%). An export rank does not by itself show where borate is mined, because a country can sell on borates it bought abroad.

Refined borax has its own ranking. In 2024 the largest exporters of HS 284019 were Turkey (Türkiye) (64% of $1.2 billion), United States (27%), Luxembourg (1.2%), Netherlands (1.2%) and Poland (1%), and the largest importers were China (45%), United States (7.3%), India (6.7%), Netherlands (4.4%) and Germany (3.7%). In the anhydrous line (HS 284011, $93.3 million) the largest exporters were United States (55%) and Turkey (Türkiye) (33%), and the largest importer was China (29%). In other borates (HS 284020, $180.9 million) the largest exporters were United States (21%), China (17%), Turkey (Türkiye) (11%) and Italy (9%), and the largest importer was Canada (12%).

Boric acid and oxide (HS 281000, $656.6 million) is the third step. In 2024 the largest exporters were United States (34%), Turkey (Türkiye) (21%), Chile (13%), Russia (9.9%) and Peru (4.2%). On the buying side the largest importers were China (30%), Brazil (11%) and South Korea (5.6%).

USGS gives the United States view in its own units. In 2024 US exports were 655 thousand t of refined borax and 246 thousand t of boric acid, against imports of 150 thousand t of refined borax, 43 thousand t of boric acid, 28 thousand t of ulexite and 1 thousand t of colemanite, and USGS marks the country a net exporter in every year from 2021 to 2025 (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). For 2021 to 2024, Turkey supplied 90% and Bolivia 6% of US boron imports in all forms. For 2025 USGS ranks by tonnage, largest first, the countries that imported refined borates from the United States: China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Netherlands and Canada. It ranks the destinations of domestic boric acid shipments the same way: China, the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. The USGS tariff table, dated 31 December 2025, lists a normal trade relations rate of nothing on natural borates, 1.5% on boric acids, 0.3% on anhydrous refined borax and 0.1% on the other forms. USGS lists only that rate, so other duties may apply.

This page quotes no boron price, because this site found no free public price series for it. This site's registry records no exchange contract and no benchmark series for borates. The customs values on this page are not prices either: each line mixes grades, so a value per tonne taken from one would be an average of unlike cargoes.

What USGS does say is how the product is priced. Boron products are sold on their boric oxide content, which varies with the ore and the compound and with whether calcium and sodium are present (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). A buyer of colemanite, borax or boric acid is therefore not buying one thing at one price. The same chapter reports a derived figure for the United States: the average unit value of combined imports, cost, insurance and freight, which was $394 per t in 2021, $485 in 2022, $606 in 2023, $574 in 2024 and an estimated $540 in 2025. It is a customs average over a mix of refined borax, boric acid and ores, so a change in it can reflect a change in the mix as well as a change in the market, and it is not a quote a buyer could trade against.

The sources used for this page do not describe how contracts are written or how often prices are reset, so the page says nothing about contract terms.

USGS says borates are used in more than 300 applications, but more than three-quarters of world consumption goes to ceramics, detergents, fertilizers and glass (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). USGS also says the glass and ceramics industries were the leading US users in 2025.

Borate production is tied to a few regions. Under Law No. 2840 of 1983 Turkey reserved exploration and exploitation of boron salts to the state, and the work is done by Eti Maden, a state-owned company (IEA policy database; Eti Maden, etimine.com; Daily Sabah, 15 September 2024). In California USGS reports three borate producers in 2025 and withholds their output. The sources used here do not cover the operators in the other producing countries.

USGS reports that Turkey supplied 90% of US boron imports in all forms from 2021 to 2024, and Bolivia 6%. The same chapter says that China, which USGS describes as having low-grade boron reserves, was the largest destination for US refined borates in 2025. In the trade data above, the largest importer of refined borax is China (45%) and the largest importer of boric acid and oxide is China (30%).

Some boron supply has been tied to lithium projects, and the plans have moved. USGS reports that a developer based in Australia delayed construction of its Nevada project in July 2025 until March 2026, owing to an 80% fall in lithium prices from the 2022 level, and that the project had been expected to make about 170,000 tons a year of boric acid as a byproduct. The sources used here do not say whether construction began. USGS also reports that the European Commission designated the Jadar lithium-boron project in Serbia as a strategic project in June 2025, with an expected 286,000 tons a year of boric acid at full production. Rio Tinto's 2025 annual report (19 February 2026) refers to a November 2025 announcement that Jadar would be placed in care and maintenance. USGS ties the Nevada delay to the lithium price, so boron supply from such projects depends on the lithium market.

Boron is on the US 2025 critical minerals list, which was published on 7 November 2025 and added boron after public comment on the draft, USGS says. It is also in the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, as a critical raw material and, for metallurgy grade, as a strategic one. A listing is a government assessment of supply risk, not a finding of shortage, and this page does not claim one.

USGS says other materials can replace boron in detergents, enamels, insulation and soaps. Sodium percarbonate can replace borates in detergents, some enamels can use phosphates, cellulose, foams and mineral wools can insulate, and fatty-acid salts can clean in soaps. The chapter does not say how much has been replaced, so substitution is a limit on demand in those uses but not a measured one.

Tariffs on boron products are low in the United States: free for natural borates, 1.5% on boric acids and 0.3% or 0.1% on refined borax at the normal trade relations rates in the USGS table dated 31 December 2025 (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). USGS lists only that rate, so other duties may apply and the cost of a cargo can differ. USGS also lists a 14% depletion allowance on borax, which is a separate item from the tariff table.

Boron is not found as a free element. USGS says it occurs bound to oxygen and other elements, as boric acid or as salts called borates, and that boron compounds, chiefly borates, are commercially important (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). Mining takes two forms in the United States. The leading producer works borate ore, containing kernite, tincal and ulexite, by open pit, and two other companies pump brines and extract the borates by solution mining. The Kramer deposit near Boron, California, is described in Rio Tinto's resource statement as a lens-shaped sedimentary sequence of sodium borates with interbedded claystone, laid down in a small non-marine basin with volcanic spring activity in the Miocene epoch, and surrounded by claystone containing ulexite and colemanite.

The minerals go to different products. At the leading US producer, USGS says kernite was used to make boric acid, tincal to make sodium borate (borax), and ulexite was a main ingredient of specialty glasses and ceramics. About 70% of Turkish deposits are colemanite, which USGS says is used mainly in heat-resistant glass. Eti Maden's product list shows the range of what a refining complex makes: borax pentahydrate and decahydrate, anhydrous borax, boric acid, boron oxide, zinc borate, calcined tincal and ground colemanite and ulexite (Eti Maden, etimine.com). The anhydrous borax falls under customs line HS 284011, the other borax under HS 284019, boric acid and boron oxide under HS 281000, and borates such as zinc borate under HS 284020, so the customs lines follow the plant.

The three steps are therefore mining or brine extraction, concentration and refining into borax and other borates, and conversion of part of that into boric acid. This is the reason the trade tables on this page are split into five lines: the leading countries differ from line to line. In 2024, for example, the second-largest exporter of natural borates was Bolivia, while the five largest exporters of boric acid and oxide were United States, Turkey (Türkiye), Chile, Russia and Peru. See HS codes for how customs lines divide a product and producing vs exporting vs processing for why the three leaders can differ.

USGS does not publish boron consumption by end use for the United States, because production and consumption data are withheld. What it does publish is a world view: more than three-quarters of world consumption is used in ceramics, detergents, fertilizers and glass (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). In the United States, USGS says, the glass and ceramics industries remained the leading users in 2025, and boron is also a component in abrasives, cleaning products, insecticides, insulation and semiconductor production.

The mineral points to the product. At the leading US producer, kernite was used to make boric acid, tincal to make sodium borate and ulexite to make specialty glasses and ceramics, and in Turkey colemanite is used mainly in heat-resistant glass, according to USGS. Elemental boron, in contrast, is a metalloid with limited commercial applications, so boron demand means demand for borates. The strategic list in the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act names only metallurgy-grade boron.

The chain has three physical stages and a different order of countries at each. The mines and brine operations sit where the deposits are: Turkey, where Eti Maden runs operations at Kırka, Emet, Bandırma and Bigadiç (Eti Maden, etimine.com), the Mojave Desert of California, and the Andean countries that USGS lists with borate production, Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. Refining and acid-making then happen in chemical plants, and the customs data show the largest export shares: in refined borax, Turkey (Türkiye) (64%) and United States (27%); in boric acid and oxide, United States (34%), Turkey (Türkiye) (21%) and Chile (13%). The end users USGS lists are glass, ceramics, detergents and fertilizers. The largest importer in each line is China (45%) for refined borax, China (30%) for boric acid and oxide and Canada (12%) for other borates.

Some links in the chain are concentrated. In Turkey the state reserves boron mining to itself, and a state company, Eti Maden, does the work (IEA policy database; Eti Maden, etimine.com). USGS reports that Turkey supplied 90% of US boron imports in all forms in 2021 to 2024, and that the United States was a net exporter in every year from 2021 to 2025 (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). On the trade side, the largest importer of refined borax was China (45%) and the second-largest exporter of other borates (HS 284020) was China (17%). USGS also describes two lithium projects that would make boric acid as a co-product. Rio Tinto's 2025 annual report (19 February 2026) says the Serbian one, Jadar, has been moved to care and maintenance, and USGS reports that construction of the Nevada one was delayed until March 2026. The sources used here report no boric acid production from either project.

Boron is on the US 2025 critical minerals list and in the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, as a critical raw material and, for metallurgy grade, as a strategic one. The critical minerals hub lists what those lists contain and the glossary entry defines the term. Related pages include potash and phosphate rock, which are fertilizer minerals, fluorspar, and lithium, which USGS links to boron through the Serbian and Nevada projects it describes.