Germanium And Gallium Byproducts Of Zinc Mining Go from No value To Value Added

Implications: Minor metal byproducts of major 'base' metals, which were discarded as waste or for which the mine did not get paid by the refiner are rapidly growing in importance and may represent enough added value to allow for the re-opening of marginal mines.

Analysis: The real story embedded in the reopening of the Mid-Tenness-Mining complex by the Canadian operator, SRA, is that not only will the MTM operations be the richest and largest producer of zinc in the USA, but will also be the largest producer of the zinc byproduct, germanium, and for the first time, not only produce gallium but be the largest producer of gallium in North America.


Previously when the MTM zinc operations were shut down due to their being uneconomical they were producing germanium as a byproduct but it was not of enough value to matter.

Today the value of that germanium will be, at full zinc production, around 14 million dollars a year at current prices, but it will be joined by nearly 40 million dollars worth of gallium for the very first time. In the past the gallium was not recovered and wound up as landfill or roadbed material.

In the last decade the Canadian company, Recapture Metals, has come into existence and has already  become the world's largest recycler of gallium from industrial process waste as well as concentrates such as those which the processes at SRA's Tennessee operations will produce.

The amounts of germanium and gallium which will be recovered as byproducts of the Tennessee zinc mining operations are 35 tons of each. This will increase the world production of both metals by more than 20%, and will be for each metal the most significant new addition to the world's supply from one location in a decade.

A Chinese company has also agreed to take ge/ga rich residues for processing, and there is no doubt that when the initial agreements with Recapture Metals and the Chinese company run out there will be a fierce competition for the contracts. it will not be surprising if the governments and defense departments of both Canada and the US take an interest in this situation.

A new era is dawning in mining; the age of counting added value for byproducts that were only recently not considered of value and were not considered when assessing the bankability of a mine.

The twenty-first century is rapidly becoming the age of minor metals.