What is it?
A brittle, silvery metalloid used mostly to stop things burning, and in the primers and tracer rounds of ammunition.
Why does it matter?
Antimony trioxide is the workhorse flame retardant in plastics, cables and textiles, and the metal has become a formal export-control subject.
Deeper written sections for this material have not been published yet. Everything below is drawn straight from the source datasets and is complete.
Where it comes from in the rock
All ore minerals →These are the minerals that actually carry antimony. A deposit is only an orebody if one of them is concentrated enough to pay for digging it up.
Who produces it
See it on a map →Mine production
Mine productionmetric tons 2025 (estimated) World total 110,000 metric tons
USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 · Mine production of contained antimony. · source ↗
Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.
| Country | Production | Share of world |
|---|---|---|
| China | 40,000 | 36.4% |
| Russia | 32,000 | 29.1% |
| Tajikistan | 22,000 | 20.0% |
| Bolivia | 5,000 | 4.5% |
| Burma | 4,500 | 4.1% |
| Turkey | 3,000 | 2.7% |
| Australia | 1,300 | 1.2% |
| Kazakhstan | 800.0 | 0.7% |
| Kyrgyzstan | 700.0 | 0.6% |
| Mexico | 600.0 | 0.5% |
| Pakistan | 260.0 | 0.2% |
| Vietnam | 220.0 | 0.2% |
| Laos | 200.0 | 0.2% |
| Iran | 90.00 | 0.1% |
| Guatemala | 50.00 | 0.0% |
| Canada | Zero | — |
| United States | Withheld | — |
| World total | 110,000 | 100% |
“Withheld” means the USGS suppressed the figure to avoid disclosing an individual company's data — it does not mean zero. Country rows do not always sum to the world total because the source rounds each figure independently and does not always break out an “other countries” line.
Who holds the reserves
Reserves
Reservesmetric tons 2025
USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 · source ↗
| Country | Reserves | Share of world |
|---|---|---|
| China | 830,000 | 41.5% |
| Russia | 350,000 | 17.5% |
| Bolivia | 310,000 | 15.5% |
| Kyrgyzstan | 260,000 | 13.0% |
| Burma | 140,000 | 7.0% |
| Australia | 110,000 | 5.5% |
| Turkey | 99,000 | 5.0% |
| Canada | 78,000 | 3.9% |
| United States | 60,000 | 3.0% |
| Tajikistan | 60,000 | 3.0% |
| Vietnam | 54,000 | 2.7% |
| Pakistan | 26,000 | 1.3% |
| Mexico | 18,000 | 0.9% |
| Laos | Not applicable | — |
| Iran | Not applicable | — |
| Guatemala | Not applicable | — |
| Kazakhstan | Not applicable | — |
| World total | >2,000,000 | 100% |
The source publishes this world total as a bound rather than a point figure, so the shares in the last column are themselves bounds.
Price
metal, average, dollars per pound
Annual averagedollars per pound
Basis: metal, average, dollars per pound. Annual averages as published in USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 · source ↗. These are reference annual averages, not a live market quote.
Mines that produce it
All mines →
What it is used for
All end markets →| End market | What it does there | Importance |
|---|---|---|
| Aerospace & Defence | Ammunition primers and flame retardants | Important |
Export controls
| Country | Control | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| China | Export licensing requirement for materials and technologies | Antimony (2024), bismuth (2025), synthesized diamond (2025), gallium (2023), germanium (2023), graphite (2023), indium (2025), magnesium materials (2024), molybdenum (2025), rare earths (2025), silver (2026), tellurium (2025), tungsten (2025), and items related to lithium batteries and artificial graphite anode materials (2025). ↗ |
USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, table 4 — controls in effect as of January 2026, excluding controls since lifted.