Prices of ammonium perrhenate (APR), a key intermediate rhenium product, have more than doubled over the course of 2024.   

Rhenium is a small, opaque market relative to many of the other critical materials markets covered by Project Blue. Primarily driven by demand from the aerospace sector, rhenium represents an un-substitutable component of nickel-based single-crystal superalloys, used in commercial jet engine turbine blades. This application accounts for approximately 80% of total rhenium consumption, where its addition to these high-temperature alloys improves creep life and provides benefits for fatigue performance given the extreme operating conditions.  

Chile is the world’s largest producer of primary rhenium, produced for the most part as a by-product of copper and molybdenum mining, with Molymet the country’s major supplier. Despite the opaque nature of rhenium trade, Chilean APR export data over the past few years points to a rapid evolution of the rhenium market landscape. Between 2022 and 2023, Chile’s exports to China rocketed by 190%, with this trend continuing in 2024. Over the first eight months of 2024, Chile’s exports of APR to China totalled 21.8t, compared to 2.4t during the whole of 2021.  

This data highlights that the market dynamic for rhenium has changed as the overhang of units that has dogged the market and led to anaemic prices over recent years, has been snapped up by Chinese players. As a result, many of the major rhenium producers are reported to have sold out of material since summer, only holding onto rhenium units that are committed to long-term supply contracts. Amid the tightening supply picture, producers are reportedly unwilling to sell at lower prices which has helped to drive the recent price increase. Project Blue notes similar Chinese stockpiling policies in other strategic critical materials markets including germanium, which have led to prices soaring to near record highs this year amid China’s export controls.  

China’s advancement in aircraft manufacturing capability through Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) comes despite the company’s reliance on Western technologies. In light of this, China has aspirations to increase superalloys production and boost self-sufficiency for domestic aeroengine manufacture over the remainder of the decade with engine programmes underway. As such, Project Blue forecasts rhenium demand in aerospace applications to grow by 2.1%py over the next decade.