Where does strontium come from?

The country that sells celestite to the United States is only the fourth-largest miner. USGS names Mexico as the source of nearly all US celestite imports in 2021 to 2024, yet Mexico mined 20,000 tonnes of celestite in 2025 (4.4% of the world total), against 250,000 tonnes (56%) for Iran and 100,000 tonnes (22%) for Spain (USGS MCS).

US celestite imports are small and erratic, and their unit value is hard to read. USGS estimates 8,100 tonnes in 2025 against 29 tonnes in 2024 and says a small quantity of high-value imports were reported, most likely mineral specimens, without saying whether they affected the unit values. With that caveat, 2025 brought 279 times the 2024 tonnage at about a fifth of the unit value ($160 against $807 per tonne), or about $1.3 million of imports against about $23,000 (our arithmetic on USGS MCS). The 2025 tonnage is 1.8% of the 450,000 tonnes mined worldwide. If nearly all of it again came from Mexico, it would equal about 40% of Mexico's 2025 output, but the data do not say where it came from.

Celestite is a small market beside barite, which it can replace in some drilling fluids. The 2025 world output of 450,000 tonnes of strontium minerals equals 5.2% of the 8.7 million tonnes of barite mined that year (our arithmetic on USGS MCS). The producers differ: China mined 25.3% of barite and 18% of celestite, Iran 3.4% of barite and 56% of celestite, and Spain is not among the ten barite producers USGS lists (USGS MCS).

In 2025 Iran mined 250,000 tonnes of strontium minerals, 56% of the 450,000 tonnes that USGS gives as rounded world output (USGS MCS). Spain followed with 100,000 tonnes (22%), then China with 80,000 tonnes (18%), Mexico with 20,000 tonnes (4.4%) and Argentina with 700 tonnes (0.2%). The top three account for 96%. World output changed +13% on the previous year, and the USGS table shows the increase coming mainly from Iran, with Spain and China unchanged. The United States is in the table with a dash for zero.

Read the table with its basis in mind. The figures are gross weight of celestite, as the table's footnote says, not tonnes of strontium. USGS marks the production columns as estimates, except Mexico's 2024 figure, which it marks as reported. The world total is rounded and the table has no line for other countries, so every share here is a share of the rounded total. USGS says its 2024 figure for Spain was revised significantly on the basis of a government report, so 2024 numbers from earlier editions should not be set beside these. The European Commission's 2020 factsheet, using British Geological Survey data averaged over 2012 to 2016, put Spain and Iran at about 31% each; those shares are not comparable with the table, since the factsheet uses strontium content and a different period.

USGS publishes reserves for just two countries: China at 12 million tonnes and Iran at 2 million tonnes. It marks the United States, Argentina, Mexico and Spain not available and gives the world figure only as "Large" (USGS MCS, 2025). The 14 million tonnes on this site is the sum of the two entries, not a world total, so 86% and 14% are shares of that sum. Spain, the second-largest miner, has no reserve figure, so the ranking says nothing about who holds the most in the ground. USGS says it revised Iran's reserves on the basis of company reports and that world resources may exceed 1 billion tons. This page makes no years-of-supply calculation. China holds most of the reserve sum but is third in mining; the Commission's factsheet, citing a Spanish geological survey publication, says Chinese celestite is of poorer quality than Spanish or Mexican celestite and that China relies on imports.

The Commission's factsheet says large celestite deposits have been found worldwide, but that barium and calcium impurities can make a deposit uneconomic because removing them costs so much energy. USGS says deposits occur widely in the United States, yet none has been mined since 1959.

This page has no trade table. This site does not track a customs line for celestite or for strontium compounds, so there are no export or import rankings here and none are computed. That is a choice about what the site tracks, not a statement that nothing is traded: USGS lists separate United States tariff lines for celestite and for strontium metal, oxide, nitrate and carbonate, and the Commission's 2020 factsheet analyzed trade in strontium carbonate.

USGS reports only on the United States. It says the country relied on imports for all of its strontium in every year of its 2021 to 2025 table, and that a few domestic companies make or distribute small quantities of downstream chemicals from imported strontium carbonate. For 2021 to 2024 it names Mexico as the source of nearly all celestite imports, and Germany and Mexico as the main sources of strontium compounds. Celestite imports swing widely: USGS estimates 8,100 tons in 2025 against 29 tons in 2024, and says such fluctuations likely reflect use in drilling fluids. It adds that some may have been stockpiled but stock data are not available.

For the European Union, the Commission's 2020 factsheet said that on 2012 to 2016 averages Spain supplied almost all of EU strontium demand and that Germany was by far the largest exporter of strontium carbonate, ahead of Mexico and China. Those are old averages and this page does not update them. The gap between where ore is mined and where it is converted is explained in producing, exporting and processing; see also HS code.

This page quotes no strontium price level. Neither USGS nor the Commission's 2020 factsheet describes an exchange-traded contract. The factsheet says strontium is traded both as the mineral celestite and as chemicals and metal, with prices usually reported in US dollars per tonne, so a price depends on which product is meant.

USGS gives one dated, free figure: the average unit value of celestite imports into the United States, valued at the port of exportation. Its 2026 summary lists $160 per ton for 2025 (estimated), $807 for 2024 and $82 for 2023. That swing shows why it is not a benchmark: it describes one country's import records, and USGS separately notes, in its trends section, that a small quantity of high-value celestite imports were reported, most likely mineral specimens; it does not say whether this affected the unit values.

Commercial price reporting exists. As of 9 October 2026 Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) published a daily strontium carbonate price for a grade of at least 97% on a delivery-to-factory basis, in US dollars per tonne, and had announced a strontium metal price for China starting 16 September 2026. The public page showed about a month of daily values and this page does not reproduce them. USGS does not say how contracts between miners, carbonate makers and magnet makers are priced, and neither does this page.

USGS estimates that most United States strontium use, counting celestite, is in drilling fluids, where barite is the preferred material and celestite substitutes for some of it, especially when barite prices are high (see barite). The Commission's factsheet likewise said the amount used depends on barite prices. USGS notes that the rig count fell 6% in the first nine months of 2025 against 2024 and was 42% below 2019, and says swings in celestite imports likely resulted from increased use in drilling fluids.

USGS says strontium carbonate, the main compound, is sintered with iron oxide to make permanent ceramic ferrite magnets, and that strontium nitrate, the second most traded compound, gives fireworks and signal flares a brilliant red. USGS and the Commission link these compounds to magnet and pyrotechnics manufacturing; USGS links celestite, not the compounds, to drilling fluids.

USGS reports that global strontium carbonate supply was disrupted in 2025 owing to reduced output from China, a major explosion at a port in Iran and fire damage to a plant in Mexico. It does not quantify the effect, and this page does not treat it as evidence of a lasting shortage.

Five countries appear in the production table and three account for most of it. The Commission's factsheet said Spain supplied almost all of EU demand on 2012 to 2016 averages, from two mines in the Granada area then owned by Canteras Industriales and by Solvay Minerales.

USGS says barium can replace strontium in ceramic ferrite magnets at the cost of a lower maximum operating temperature, and that replacing it in pyrotechnics is hindered by difficulty in getting the same brilliance and visibility.

USGS reports that in 2024 funding through the Defense Production Act Investments program was announced to set up domestic manufacturing of 22 critical chemicals, including strontium nitrate, oxalate and peroxide, which it says may increase imports of celestite or strontium carbonate in the next few years. It also reports an Australia-based company's September 2025 acquisition of a California strontium deposit, with exploration drilling planned, and research into extracting strontium at a Montana mining site. These are plans, not production.

For drilling fluids, USGS says celestite is ground but undergoes no chemical processing. For everything else it is the raw material for strontium carbonate and other compounds. A 2025 review in Minerals Engineering lists the techniques for upgrading celestite and strontianite as manual sorting, size separation, gravity separation, flotation and dense media separation.

The Commission's 2020 factsheet describes the usual chemical route. Celestite is heated with carbon, reducing it to strontium sulfide. The sulfide is converted to the carbonate either by passing carbon dioxide through it, which also gives hydrogen sulfide, or by reacting it with sodium carbonate, which gives sodium sulfide. The carbonate is the starting point for other compounds; the metal is made by converting it to oxide and reacting that with aluminum in a vacuum.

Uses depend on the product, and USGS gives a split for the United States only. Based on import data, it estimates that drilling fluids take most United States use, counting celestite, with ceramic ferrite magnets and pyrotechnics and signals each taking a smaller, equal share and the rest going to electrolytic zinc production, glass, master alloys, pigments and fillers. The Commission's factsheet warned that this may not describe the EU, where there is less drilling, and that compounds alone are used mainly by ceramics, glass and pyrotechnics industries.

The compounds do specific jobs. The Commission says strontium carbonate makes ferrite magnets that work at high temperatures and resist demagnetization, and strontium nitrate colors fireworks and flares red. Strontium oxide was once the main glass additive in cathode-ray tubes, almost entirely replaced by flat panels, and is still used in fibreglass, laboratory glass and pharmaceutical glass. Strontium metal goes into aluminum casting alloys. USGS adds that research continues on uses such as atomic optical clocks, and that a strontium optical lattice clock went on sale in Japan in 2025 for $3.3 million.

A mine produces celestite, which is either ground for drilling fluids or converted to carbonate, and the carbonate feeds magnet, glass and pyrotechnic makers. Kandelium, a German group that Solvay's press release says was sold to Latour Capital in 2021 as part of its barium and strontium business, describes itself (as of October 2026) as a global leader in technical-grade strontium carbonate, and Sakai Chemical Industry of Japan lists strontium carbonate among its products on its products page. USGS says large-scale carbonate production in the United States ceased in 2006.

Strontium's status as a critical mineral differs by jurisdiction, as this page's badge shows. The Commission's 2020 list of 30 added strontium, with bauxite, lithium and titanium, and its 2023 list of 34, carried by the Critical Raw Materials Act, names it. The Act entered into force on 23 May 2024, according to the Commission. The Commission describes its supply-risk test as based on how concentrated primary supply is among producing countries, with their governance and trade aspects, and measured for EU supply. This page reads criticality as a statement about EU sourcing, not a worldwide shortage.

The United States 2025 list of 60 critical minerals, announced on 6 November and published in the Federal Register on 7 November 2025, does not include strontium, and this page found no source stating why. USGS says only that strontium was variously included or not included on critical minerals lists developed by several countries and regions. It lists the government stockpile and recycling as none, and the Commission's factsheet put the end-of-life recycling input rate below 1%. See critical minerals, critical mineral, fluorspar and feldspar.