Where does feldspar come from?

Turkey sells almost everything it mines, while India, the largest miner, sells little of what it mines. Turkey's 5.18 million tonnes of feldspar exports in 2024 equal 98% of its 5.27 million tonne 2024 mine output, against 15% for India (our arithmetic on CEPII BACI and USGS MCS). Re-exports and USGS estimates make both ratios indicative only. The gap shows in the site's concentration index (the sum of squared percentage shares), which is 1,090 for 2025 mine output but 2,179 for 2024 exports, where Turkey alone held 42% of export value (CEPII BACI).

A few corridors carry much of the trade, and some buyers are tied to one seller. Turkey to Italy, Turkey to Spain and South Africa to India together carried 42% of the $678.8 million of feldspar trade in 2024 (our arithmetic on CEPII BACI). The EU took 88% of its extra-EU imports from Turkey that year, well above the 65% benchmark used in the supplier exposure report. South Africa sent 98% of its exports to India (CEPII BACI).

One customs line hides very different products. Among the ten largest exporters by value in 2024, customs value per tonne ran from $24 for Morocco to $369 for South Africa (our arithmetic on CEPII BACI value and net weight). India exported at $76 per tonne in 2024 but imported at $364, and 98% of those imports came from South Africa (CEPII BACI). One HS line covers all grades and grinds, so the data show a pattern in declared value and do not say what drives it.

In 2025 India mined 6 million tonnes of feldspar, 19% of the 31 million tonnes that USGS gives as world output (USGS MCS). Turkey (Türkiye) followed with 17%, then Iran (13%), China (12%) and Italy (7.1%). The top three account for 49% and the top five for 68%. USGS's rounded world total for 2024 was 31.1 million tonnes. Feldspar is mined widely: USGS's 2019 Minerals Yearbook (2019 data, published 2025) counted more than 70 countries with significant resources and more than 40 producing, so the ranking shows where large mines are, not where the minerals occur.

Read the table with its basis in mind. The USGS chapter covers feldspar and nepheline syenite, but the world table is footnoted as feldspar only, so nepheline syenite, a rock of alkali feldspars and nepheline, is not in these figures. USGS labels the production columns as estimates, except Turkey's 2024 figure, which is marked as reported. The United States entry is marketable production, rounded to two significant digits to avoid disclosing company data. USGS labels Brazil's entry as beneficiated, marketable material and Spain's as including pegmatites, so those lines are not measured like the rest. Every share here is a share of USGS's rounded world total of 31 million tonnes. USGS also revised its 2024 figures for Brazil, China, Iran, Morocco, Spain and Turkey, so earlier editions' 2024 numbers should not be set beside these.

USGS reports reserves for only some countries and marks the rest not available, including Italy, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain and the United States. It gives the world reserve figure only as "Large". Where figures exist, the largest are China at 730 million tonnes, Turkey (Türkiye) at 720 million tonnes, India at 320 million tonnes, South Korea at 200 million tonnes and Brazil at 150 million tonnes (USGS MCS, 2025). The 2.3 billion tonnes on this site's reserves panel is the sum of the countries for which USGS lists a figure, not a world total, which USGS gives only as "Large". A missing figure means USGS had none to publish, so this page makes no years-of-supply calculation. USGS says identified and undiscovered resources are more than adequate for anticipated world demand, though not always conveniently placed for consumers.

Feldspar is not one mineral but a group. USGS's 2019 Minerals Yearbook says feldspars constitute about 60% of the earth's crust and are anhydrous aluminosilicate minerals in two groupings: alkali feldspars, from potassium- to sodium-rich, and plagioclase feldspars, from sodium- to calcium-rich.

Turkey (Türkiye) was the largest exporter of feldspar (HS 252910) in 2024 with 42% of world export value, ahead of South Africa (14%), India (10%), China (6.4%) and Thailand (3.8%), on world trade of $678.8 million (CEPII BACI). Italy was the largest importer with 19%, followed by Spain (18%), India (13%) and Bangladesh (5%). Ranked by weight, the same data again put Turkey first, while South Africa, second by value, sits well down the weight ranking.

The heading is feldspar only. USGS lists nepheline syenite under a separate tariff number, so trade in it, which the United States depends on, is not here. See HS code.

Most feldspar appears to be consumed in the country where it is mined. BACI recorded about 9.8 million tonnes of feldspar exports in 2024, about 32% of USGS's 31.1 million tonne world mine production for that year. Trade statistics include re-exports and USGS output is partly estimated, so treat the ratio as indicative. USGS does not say why. A 1910 USGS study of US deposits (Bulletin 420) listed distance from railroad or navigable water and freight rates to the main markets first among five factors in whether a deposit would pay, and said favorable conditions in some could offset unfavorable ones in others. For low-value pegmatite sold for roofing and poultry grit, it found hauls of more than 1 or 2 miles from mine to shipping point were in most places prohibitive. USGS's 2019 Minerals Yearbook (2019 data, published 2025) noted in its outlook for US producers that higher transport charges for delivered raw materials could raise glass and tile costs, and reported that feldspar was not often stockpiled, with production often closely tied to consumer demand.

Much of the trade is consistent with ceramic tile demand. The same yearbook reported that most of Turkey's feldspar output was exported, mainly to Italy and Spain (38% each), that Italy imported about 2.7 million tonnes of feldspar, 94% of it from Turkey, that Italy was a ceramic tile producer, and that Spain and India ranked second and third in world tile exports. The largest importers in the 2024 data are Italy, Spain, India and Bangladesh. India is the largest miner and also an importer, so production rank does not predict import rank.

USGS's Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 reports that Turkey supplied 93% of US feldspar imports in 2021 to 2024, with Mexico 5%. See producing, exporting and processing.

This page quotes no feldspar price, because there is no free public series on this site, and USGS publishes no world price. It publishes average unit values, in dollars per metric ton, for US marketable feldspar and for imported nepheline syenite, which describe particular flows, not a benchmark.

What can be said is what a price depends on. The 1910 USGS study described three commercial grades, separated by freedom from iron-bearing minerals, mica and quartz, and listed different prices for crude and ground feldspar, with finer grinding priced higher and prices varying with local competition. Those prices are a century old and show only that grade and fineness have long mattered. USGS says feldspar is ground to about 20 mesh for glassmaking and to 200 mesh or finer for most ceramic and filler uses, so the specification still varies by customer.

USGS's 2019 Minerals Yearbook (2019 data, published 2025) gives an average unit value of $45 per tonne for Turkish feldspar imports into the United States (customs value) and $107 per tonne for US feldspar. The two are measured differently, and USGS draws no conclusion from the gap. USGS does not describe how contracts are priced, and neither does this page.

USGS says feldspar goes into plate glass, ceramic tile, sanitaryware and insulation, so demand is linked to construction, although in 2025 US housing starts rose slightly (first eight months against the same period of 2024) while estimated US feldspar production fell slightly, according to USGS's 2026 summary.

USGS says market trends continue to shift toward alternatives to plastic, with companies promoting glass containers, and expects those developments and construction to keep driving demand for feldspar-based products. That is USGS's view as of its 2026 summary, not a forecast made here.

Freight is a cost for feldspar users. USGS's 1910 study of US deposits listed distance to rail or water and freight rates first among five factors in whether a deposit would pay, and USGS's 2019 Minerals Yearbook noted in its outlook that higher transport charges for delivered raw materials could raise glass and tile costs. USGS does not say that transport cost explains where most feldspar is used.

Customers buy feldspar for what it does in a melt, so what is mixed in matters. The 1910 study graded feldspar by freedom from iron-bearing minerals, mica and quartz. USGS's 2019 Yearbook said Arkansas nepheline syenite, which typically contained 3% or more iron oxide, lowered the melt temperature more than a lower-iron material but gave a darker product, and was used in bricks and darker-bodied tile.

The Commission's 2023 assessment says feldspar for glass and ceramics became critical because of higher supply risk, particularly higher import dependency and a doubling of imports from Türkiye. On the study's 2016-2020 average data Türkiye supplied 51% of EU needs and accounted for 32% of global supply. The study notes the EU also extracts feldspar, in Italy, Spain, France, Czechia and Germany among others.

USGS names imported nepheline syenite as the major alternative to feldspar, and lists clays, electric furnace slag, feldspar-silica mixtures, pyrophyllite, spodumene and talc as replacements in some end uses. It adds that glass container producers use cullet, recycled container glass, which reduces the feldspar and nepheline syenite consumed.

Sources describe feldspar mining as open-pit work. The 1910 USGS study found most US excavations were open pits in pegmatite, a coarse rock in which minerals are irregularly distributed and in which it said commercially valuable feldspar usually occurs. Virginia's geology agency says its one active feldspar mine is an open pit. In 1910 pottery-grade material was hand picked at the quarry to remove mica, quartz and iron-bearing minerals, while material for poultry grit or roofing needed no sorting.

Processing includes cleaning and sizing. USGS's 2019 Yearbook table groups hand-cobbed feldspar, flotation-concentrate feldspar, feldspar-quartz mixtures and aplite, a rock dominated by quartz and feldspar. Esan, a Turkish producer, says it built its country's first feldspar flotation plant in 1985. USGS reports that US processors also recovered mica and silica sand alongside feldspar in 2025.

The product is a ground powder: about 20 mesh for glassmaking and 200 mesh or finer for most ceramic and filler uses, according to USGS. It describes no chemical refining stage for feldspar.

The two large uses are glass and ceramics, and in both feldspar works as a flux, lowering the temperature at which the batch melts. USGS's 2019 Yearbook explained that in glassmaking the alkalis in feldspar lowered the melting temperature and helped other minerals such as quartz to combine, while the alumina and calcium added resistance to physical and chemical breakdown, and that in ceramics feldspar also controlled how far the body vitrified, turning glassy, during firing.

USGS gives an end-use split for the United States only. For 2025 it reports ceramics, pottery and miscellaneous applications at 53% of domestic feldspar use and glass manufacturing, including fibreglass insulation, flat glass, containers and specialty glass, at the other 47%. The 2019 Yearbook said worldwide consumption was mostly for glassware and ceramics, but USGS gives no world split, and neither does this page.

USGS's 2019 Yearbook named ceramic and porcelain tile, electrical insulators, sanitaryware and tableware as ceramic uses, with smaller amounts as filler in paint, plastics and rubber. It reported that alkali feldspars were mostly used in glass and ceramics, plagioclase, especially sodium-rich types, mainly in ceramics and construction applications, and calcium-rich plagioclase for its alumina in fibreglass and glass-reinforced plastics. Nepheline syenite had similar uses and in the United States also went into roofing granules, bricks, tile and construction aggregate.

The chain is short: a mine or quarry, a grinding and cleaning plant, then the glassworks, tile factory or filler customer. USGS describes no smelting or chemical refining stage, so the useful questions are about location and grade. See critical mineral and the critical minerals hub.

Feldspar's status differs by jurisdiction, as this page's badge shows. The European Union lists it among its 34 critical raw materials. The Commission's 2023 study, which assessed 70 candidate materials and fed into the Critical Raw Materials Act, names feldspar as one of six materials newly critical compared with 2020, and gives the reason: feldspar used in glass and ceramics became critical because of an increase in supply risk, particularly higher import dependency and the doubling of imports from Türkiye, which on the study's 2016-2020 average data supplied 51% of EU needs. The finding concerns where supply comes from, not the amount in the ground, which USGS describes as adequate. The Act entered into force on 23 May 2024 according to the Commission.

The United States list published in the Federal Register on 7 November 2025 names 60 critical minerals, and feldspar is not among them. The notice does not mention feldspar, and this page found no source stating why it is absent, so it offers no reason. USGS lists the US government stockpile as none and says producers do not recycle feldspar or nepheline syenite.

The data fit the Commission's picture: Turkey (Türkiye) is the largest exporter in the trade table and Turkey (Türkiye) is second in the production table. The risk the Commission describes is specific to EU sourcing, and this page does not read it as a worldwide shortage.