What is it?
A metal that makes steel much stronger when added in tiny amounts — a few hundred grams per tonne changes the whole alloy.
Why does it matter?
High-strength low-alloy steel with niobium lets pipelines, bridges and car bodies use less metal for the same strength. It is also the superconductor in MRI magnets.
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 niobium. A deposit is only an orebody if one of them is concentrated enough to pay for digging it up.
Pyrochlore
The niobium mineral of carbonatite deposits, and the reason niobium supply is so geographically concentrated.
Columbite-Tantalite (coltan)
A solid-solution series: niobium-rich at one end, tantalum-rich at the other. Source of both metals, and a designated…
Who produces it
See it on a map →Mine production
Mine productionmetric tons 2025 (estimated) World total 112,000 metric tons
USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 · Mine production of contained niobium; supply is unusually concentrated in a single country. · source ↗
Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.
| Country | Production | Share of world |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil | 104,000 | 92.9% |
| Canada | 6,000 | 5.4% |
| Congo (Kinshasa) | 970.0 | 0.9% |
| Russia | 300.0 | 0.3% |
| Rwanda | 200.0 | 0.2% |
| Other countries | 120.0 | 0.1% |
| China | 40.00 | 0.0% |
| United States | Zero | — |
| World total | 112,000 | 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil | 14,000,000 | 66.7% |
| China | 6,500,000 | 31.0% |
| Canada | 640,000 | 3.0% |
| United States | 210,000 | 1.0% |
| Russia | 3,000 | 0.0% |
| Congo (Kinshasa) | Not applicable | — |
| Rwanda | Not applicable | — |
| Other countries | Not applicable | — |
| World total | >21,000,000 | 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
average unit value, ferroniobium, dollars per kilogram
Annual averagedollars per kilogram
Basis: average unit value, ferroniobium, dollars per kilogram. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine & Health | Superconducting MRI wire | Defining |
| Construction & Steel | High-strength low-alloy steel | Important |