Where does rhenium come from?

Chile holds the most rhenium reserves and recovers the most, but the rest of the table lines up less neatly. USGS prints a reserves figure for six countries. Chile held 52% of their 2,495 tonnes sum in 2025 and produced 37% of 2025 output, while China held 8% of the sum and produced 25% (all USGS MCS). Set against one year of output, China's reserves equal 10 years and the United States' equal 41 years (our arithmetic on USGS MCS). Both ratios are rough. USGS's US output is a calculation that assumes 80% recovery, and the shares are of a six-country sum, not a world reserves total.

The United States uses far more rhenium than it recovers. USGS puts US apparent consumption at 38 tonnes in 2025, equal to 47% of the 81 tonnes of world primary output and 3.8 times the 10 tonnes of US primary output in USGS's salient statistics table (our arithmetic on USGS MCS). US net import reliance ranged from 61% in 2023 to 75% in 2025 across 2021 to 2025 (USGS MCS). The measures differ in scope, since apparent consumption is built from imports as well as domestic output and world output counts only rhenium recovered in processing, so the 47% shows scale only.

Whether 2025 prices cleared the level recyclers need depends on which product you mean. USGS cites industry sources putting that level above $3,000 per kilogram and does not say which product or weight basis it covers. Metal pellets averaged $2,600 per kilogram in 2025, 13% below it. Ammonium perrhenate averaged $2,300 per kilogram of product, 23% below it, but because it is 69.4% rhenium that is about $3,314 per kilogram of contained rhenium, 10% above it (our arithmetic on USGS MCS).

In 2025 Chile accounted for 30 tonnes of rhenium, 37% of the 81 tonnes world total (USGS MCS). China followed with 20 tonnes (25%), then Poland with 10 tonnes (12%), the United States with 9.8 tonnes (12%) and Uzbekistan with 7 tonnes (8.6%). The top three account for 74%. South Korea, Kazakhstan and Armenia complete the 8 countries with a figure; Russia is also listed, with NA. USGS reports rhenium in kilograms and this site converts to tonnes (metric tons), so USGS's 81,000 kilograms appears as 81 tonnes. USGS describes world output as up 1 percent on 2024.

The figure is not mining in the usual sense. USGS's footnote defines it as the estimated amount of rhenium recovered in association with copper and molybdenum production, so it is rhenium content, not ore. The footnote on the Chile row describes that figure as rhenium recovered from roaster residues from Belgium, Chile, Mexico and Peru, so it is not only Chilean-mined material. The United States figure is a calculation: USGS says it rests on 80 percent recovery of the rhenium estimated to be in molybdenum disulfide concentrates, from porphyry copper-molybdenum deposits in Arizona and Montana. USGS labels the 2025 column as estimated, says it revised the 2024 figures for China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and prints Russia's production as NA. The eight countries add up to the world figure USGS prints, which it marks as rounded.

USGS prints a reserves column for six countries only, and the word "Large" for the world rather than a number. They are Chile (1,300 tonnes), the United States (400 tonnes), Russia (310 tonnes), China (200 tonnes), Kazakhstan (190 tonnes) and Armenia. They sum to 2,495 tonnes on this site's arithmetic, which is not a world reserves figure: the shares quoted here (Chile 52%, the United States 16%) are shares of that six-country sum only. USGS marks reserves as not available for South Korea, Poland and Uzbekistan, which all produce rhenium, and estimates identified US resources at about 7 million kilograms.

This page has no trade table, and none of the numbers in it are trade figures calculated by this site. The reason is how customs classifies the metal. Rhenium is one of the minor metals grouped in heading 8112 of the Harmonized System. It has had its own six-digit lines (HS 8112.41 for unwrought metal, waste, scrap and powders; 8112.49 for articles) only since the 2022 revision. Before that it was reported with other minor metals, in HS 8112.92 and 8112.99 (HS 8112.92 also covered hafnium, gallium, germanium, indium, niobium and vanadium). USGS's footnote to its own table shows the change: US imports of rhenium were reported under HTS 8112.92.5000 in 2021, and under 8112.41 and 8112.49 from 2022 to 2025. A customs series for rhenium therefore changes line at the revision, and this site has not built one. See HS codes for why such lines matter.

What can be said comes from USGS, and is about the United States. USGS reports net import reliance of 75 percent of apparent consumption in 2025, and lists Canada, Chile, Germany, Kazakhstan and Poland as the countries that supplied most of the imported rhenium. For 2021 to 2024 it gives the sources of total imports as Chile 31 percent, Canada 27 percent, Germany 16 percent, Poland 14 percent and other 12 percent. Chile (38 percent) and Canada (28 percent) were the largest sources of metal, and Canada (25 percent) and Kazakhstan (24 percent) of ammonium perrhenate. Canada and Germany are not in the production table; USGS names Germany among the leading secondary producers and Canada among the others, so the import sources do not line up with the production table.

As of 31 December 2025, USGS lists US normal trade relations tariffs of 3.1 percent on ammonium perrhenate, 3 percent on unwrought rhenium powders and 4 percent on other rhenium, with unwrought rhenium, waste and scrap free. These are base rates and do not include any additional US duties.

This page shows no rhenium price series. This site has no free public series for it and uses no exchange benchmark. The prices USGS publishes come from Argus Media group, Argus Non-Ferrous Markets, and are annual averages of value per kilogram, gross weight, for two products: rhenium metal in pellets of 99.9 percent purity, and catalytic-grade ammonium perrhenate, which is 69.4 percent rhenium. Each is a different product, so one quote does not describe the other.

For 2025 USGS estimates that catalytic-grade ammonium perrhenate averaged $2,300 per kilogram, 78 percent more than the 2024 average, and that rhenium metal pellets averaged $2,600 per kilogram, a 90 percent increase on 2024. Those are USGS annual averages for 2025, not a current price. USGS adds that industry sources say recyclers would need prices to stay consistently above $3,000 per kilogram to offset high processing costs. This page makes no forecast of the price. Naming a company on this page is not investment advice.

Supply depends on plants that already handle molybdenum and copper, and USGS says special facilities are needed to capture the rhenium. USGS says rhenium comes from roasting molybdenum concentrates from porphyry copper-molybdenum deposits, and that it also occurs with copper minerals in sedimentary deposits in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia and Uzbekistan, where the rhenium-bearing residues are recovered at copper smelters. A 2015 USGS fact sheet says special facilities are needed to take rhenium out of molybdenite concentrate.

In its description of US use, USGS estimates that superalloys for high-temperature turbine engine components took about 80 percent of rhenium end use, and petroleum-reforming catalysts about 15 percent. Demand is tied to the sectors that use superalloys and reforming catalysts. USGS says substitutes for platinum-rhenium catalysts are continually being evaluated and that one application using iridium and tin has achieved commercial success. It also reports FDA approval of several molybdenum-rhenium medical devices and calls medical implants a growing end use, with no size given.

USGS says industry sources estimated global secondary production at between 20,000 and 25,000 kilograms in 2025, excluding rhenium recovered from spent catalysts, which stays in a closed loop of reuse. For comparison, the production figure on this page is 81 tonnes. USGS reports that industry sources said recyclers would need prices to stay consistently above $3,000 per kilogram to offset high processing costs, and that some companies increased investment in recovery technology.

USGS says the United States continued to rely on imports for much of its supply, with net import reliance of 75 percent of apparent consumption in 2025, up from 68 percent in 2024. It reports no government stockpile, and says estimated apparent consumption in 2025 rose 34 percent on 2024.

USGS reports that the final 2025 US list of critical minerals, published in the Federal Register on 7 November 2025, added rhenium, copper, lead, potash, silicon and silver (and, after public comment, boron, metallurgical coal, phosphate rock and uranium) to the 2022 list. The Interior Department release describes rhenium as used in high-performance jet engines and gas turbines. A listing is a government assessment, and this page does not claim a shortage.

Rhenium has almost no minerals of its own. The 2015 USGS fact sheet says it often substitutes for molybdenum in molybdenite, which commonly contains between 100 and 3,000 parts per million of rhenium, and that most of that molybdenite comes from porphyry copper deposits.

The recovery step happens during roasting. According to the fact sheet, rhenium is oxidized in the roasting furnace and carried up the flue stack with sulfur gases. Scrubbing the dust and gases yields solutions that contain dissolved rhenium, which is precipitated as ammonium perrhenate, a white powder the fact sheet calls the principal form in which rhenium is marketed. That is why plants matter more than mines: no rhenium comes out unless the concentrate is roasted in a plant equipped to capture it.

From ammonium perrhenate, processors make the metal. As of October 2026, Molymet, a Chilean processor of molybdenum and rhenium, says it makes rhenium metal powder by reducing ammonium perrhenate with hydrogen, and briquettes by sintering the powder. As of October 2026, KGHM in Poland says rhenium is a by-product of its copper production, and sells metal pellets of at least 99.9 percent rhenium and catalytic-grade ammonium perrhenate of at least 69.4 percent rhenium. The tonnage on this page is rhenium content, not the weight of ammonium perrhenate, which USGS puts at 69.42 percent rhenium. Los Alamos National Laboratory gives rhenium a density of 21.02 grams per cubic centimetre and the third-highest melting point of any element, about 3,190 degrees Celsius.

USGS gives an end-use split in its description of US use, not as a world table: about 80 percent superalloys and about 15 percent petroleum-reforming catalysts. For the rest it lists rhenium alloys in crucibles, electrical contacts, electromagnets, electron tubes and targets, heating elements, thermocouples, vacuum tubes and other applications, without shares. A 2015 USGS fact sheet gave a world split of over 80 percent superalloys and about 10 percent catalysts, so the picture is the same, though that source is older.

In superalloys, USGS says rhenium improves the strength of some nickel-base alloys above 1,000 degrees Celsius. In refining, bimetallic platinum-rhenium catalysts are used in petroleum reforming to produce high-octane hydrocarbons for lead-free gasoline. For some smaller uses USGS names substitutes: tungsten and platinum-ruthenium for coatings on electrical contacts, rhodium and rhodium-iridium for high-temperature thermocouples. The chapter lists no substitute for the superalloy use.

The chain starts with copper and molybdenum, not rhenium. Molybdenite concentrate is roasted, the roaster gases are scrubbed, and rhenium comes out as ammonium perrhenate, then as metal, alloys or catalyst precursors, then goes to superalloy melters, catalyst makers and component fabricators. Scrap from used blades and spent catalysts feeds back in.

The production table is concentrated: 74% comes from Chile, China and Poland. The countries sit in different parts of the chain. USGS describes the US output as coming from molybdenum roasters in Arizona and Montana, while the 2015 fact sheet says Poland's rhenium comes from sediment-hosted copper deposits. In the United States, USGS's apparent consumption for 2025, which counts primary production plus imports minus exports, is well above US primary production, and USGS reports that imports supply much of it.

The United States added rhenium to its critical minerals list in 2025. See the critical minerals hub for how such lists work and the glossary entry for the term. Rhenium is tied to molybdenum and copper on the supply side and to nickel on the demand side, since nickel-base superalloys take most of it.