Magnesium

The 2021 Magnesium Crisis: China's Electricity Curbs Nearly Shut Down European Industry

In early October 2021, the Yulin city government in Shaanxi province — source of roughly half of China's magnesium output — ordered energy-intensive producers to curb or halt production between September and December to meet 2021 energy-intensity targets. In Fugu county alone, magnesium enterprises halted production for ten days from 20–30 September 2021 (State Council Information Office, 29 Oct 2021). Across Shaanxi, 35 of roughly 50 magnesium smelters were shut for the rest of the year, with the remainder ordered to cut output by 50% (Mining Technology, 19 Oct 2021).

Chinese ex-works magnesium ingot (99.9%) spiked to an all-time high of 70,000–71,200 yuan/tonne (~$11,000–$11,150/t) in late September 2021, up from a range of 14,000–20,000 yuan/tonne over the prior decade — a roughly 230% year-on-year increase in the August–September monthly average alone (South China Morning Post, 28 Oct 2021). Export prices FOB China assessed by Argus peaked at $10,000–10,600/t on 23 September 2021, versus $4,700–4,760/t at the start of that month (Argus Media, 29 Sep 2022).

China supplies ~93% of the EU's magnesium imports and ~97% of unwrought magnesium imports, and accounts for roughly 89% of global magnesium production (Eurometaux, Nov 2021). On 22 October 2021, a cross-industry coalition of European metals and automotive associations (including Eurometaux, ACEA, and WV Metalle) warned the European Commission that the EU risked running out of magnesium stocks within one to two months, threatening production stoppages across the aluminum value chain — automotive, construction, and packaging (ACEA/Eurometaux joint statement, 22 Oct 2021). Germany's WV Metalle said German and European reserves would be "exhausted in a few weeks, at the end of November 2021 at the latest" (Mining Technology, 19 Oct 2021).

Why it matters: Europe closed its last primary magnesium smelter in 2001 after being undercut by low-cost Chinese exports, leaving the continent almost entirely import-dependent (Eurometaux, Nov 2021). Magnesium is the essential alloying element that hardens aluminum for beverage cans, automotive body sheet, and structural castings — without it, aluminum rolling and die-casting lines cannot run. The 2021 shock was the first time a Western industrial bloc faced an imminent production halt from a single-country critical-mineral dependency in the post-2010 rare-earths era.

Price Movement: From $2,000 to $22,000/t and Back Again

China's domestic price fell as much as 40% within a month once Fugu smelters restarted, dropping from the 70,000 yuan/tonne peak to 42,500–43,000 yuan/tonne by 27 October 2021 (Caixin Global, 28 Oct 2021). Prices then spiked again in January 2022 to ¥55,000/t (~$8,634/t) on low stockpiles before easing (S&P Global Commodity Insights, 11 Jan 2022). USGS recorded the annual average U.S. spot Western price nearly doubling from 2021 to 2022 as a direct result of the Utah shutdown of domestic capacity (USGS MCS 2023, magnesium metal).

By mid-2022, the downstream effects reached U.S. manufacturing directly: Kaiser Aluminum issued a force majeure at its Newport, Indiana rolling mill in July 2022 due to the magnesium shortage, and later reported roughly $24 million in higher Q3 2022 costs tied to magnesium constraints (S&P Global Commodity Insights, 8 Jul 2022; Supply Chain Dive, 27 Oct 2022).

The US Response: DPA Funding for Magrathea and the Loss of US Magnesium Corp

US Magnesium's Rowley, Utah plant (annual capacity ~63,500 t magnesium) suffered a critical failure of gas-turbine generators in September 2021 that halted magnesium output; COVID-era supply-chain delays for replacement parts contributed to management mothballing the line rather than repairing it. The company told USGS it had ceased magnesium production entirely by September 2022 (USGS, Magnesium Statistics and Information). In its bankruptcy filing, president Ron Thayer testified magnesium is "a critical component to United States defense contractors" and that resuming production would require a $40 million investment (Grist, 23 Dec 2025). The State of Utah won the bankruptcy auction for the site's land and water rights with a $30 million cash bid, closing 6 February 2026 — primarily to stop the plant's heavy draw on the shrinking Great Salt Lake, not to restart magnesium production (KSL.com, 16 Feb 2026).

1 February 2024 — the Department of Defense, via Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III, formed a $28 million public-private partnership with Magrathea Metals (Oakland, CA), a startup producing primary magnesium electrolytically from seawater and brines. DoD's capital contribution ($19.6 million, with Magrathea and partners covering the remainder) is described as the US government's first major magnesium investment since World War II, aiming to restore domestic primary production absent for roughly 40 years (Magrathea Metals press release, 1 Feb 2024).

The Magrathea award was part of a broader $192.5 million DPA Title III tranche spread across seven US companies building military-grade chemical and mineral supply chains, announced in October 2024 (Project Blue, 9 Oct 2024). In September 2024, the Department of Energy separately granted Magrathea $1.17 million to optimize magnesium chloride brine processing (Founderland, 20 Jun 2026). By 2025, Magrathea reported metal from its pilot line had met the Department of War's purity target and had signed agreements with more than 25 companies, including ten within the US defense industrial base (Magrathea, 19 May 2026).

On 20 March 2025, the White House issued an executive order invoking DPA authorities and directing federal agencies to accelerate domestic critical mineral production on federal lands, with EXIM Bank's Supply Chain Resiliency Initiative empowered to secure offtake for domestic processing (The White House, 20 Mar 2025; CSIS analysis, 24 Mar 2025).

Why it matters: With US Magnesium gone, the United States has zero primary magnesium production and relies entirely on imports plus roughly 110,000 tonnes/year of secondary (recycled) magnesium recovered from scrap (Light Metal Age, 5 May 2025). Magrathea's pilot-to-commercial pathway (targeting up to 2 million lb/year by 2027 and 7,000 t/year by 2029 via distributor Wogen) is the only domestic primary project moving toward production (Founderland, 20 Jun 2026).

Defense & Strategic Uses: The Alloying Element Behind Every Airframe

1. Aluminum-magnesium alloys in aerospace structures

Alloy 7075 (5.6–6.1% zinc, 2.1–2.5% magnesium, 1.2–1.6% copper) was reverse-engineered by Alcoa in 1943 from a captured Japanese Zero fighter and standardized for US aerospace use in 1945. It remains the baseline material for aircraft wing spars, bulkheads, fuselage frames, and landing-gear components, and is the industry-standard material for AR-15/M16-family upper and lower receivers used across US and allied small arms (7075 aluminium alloy technical reference). The related 7175 alloy (2.3–2.9% magnesium) is used in missile components, rocket motor cases, and helicopter rotor hubs (aerospace alloy technical reference).

2. Magnesium alloy castings in aircraft and missiles

Beyond its role as an aluminum alloying agent, magnesium metal itself is die-cast into lightweight structural and housing components for aircraft, missiles, and ground vehicles where weight savings are critical, given magnesium's status as the lightest structural metal in common industrial use (critical-materials supply chain analysis). Magrathea has stated its first defense customer uses magnesium metal in "an unsubstitutable application critical to national security" requiring uniquely stringent purity specifications that are difficult to meet using recycled material (Magrathea Metals press release, 12 Jun 2024).

3. Incendiary weapons and pyrotechnic flares

Magnesium's high combustion temperature and difficulty of extinguishing make it a longstanding component of military incendiary devices and illumination flares (incendiary device technical reference). The Defense Department has funded programs to recover and reprocess magnesium from obsolete or unserviceable illuminating munitions for reuse in new production, reflecting both the metal's persistent demand in pyrotechnic compositions and the value of reclaiming it from the demilitarization stream (National Defense Industrial Association, demilitarization program brief).

4. Reducing agent for titanium sponge production

Magnesium metal is the reducing agent in the Kroll process, the dominant industrial method for converting titanium tetrachloride into titanium sponge — the feedstock for titanium used in jet engines, airframes, and naval systems. A domestic magnesium shortfall therefore has second-order effects on titanium sponge availability, a separate designated critical material (critical-materials supply chain analysis).

Trade Flows: China's ~87% Share and the Search for Alternatives

1. Global producer roster: who supplies non-Chinese magnesium

In 2023, global primary magnesium output was approximately 940,000 tonnes, of which China produced ~810,000 tonnes (about 85% of global supply), with Shaanxi's smelters alone producing ~460,000 tonnes (nearly 60% of China's output and ~50% of global supply). Primary production outside China totaled roughly 120,000 tonnes in 2023, spread nearly evenly across Israel, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkey. The market rebounded to approximately 1 million tonnes in 2024, up 11% (Light Metal Age, 5 May 2025).

2. Israel and Turkey: the US's post-China import lifeline

US import sourcing has already diversified away from China: the US now sources nearly 75% of its magnesium imports from Israel and Turkey combined, as both countries direct the majority of their exports to the US market (Light Metal Age, 5 May 2025). Dead Sea Magnesium's electrolytic process draws carnallite feedstock from Dead Sea brine under a concession arrangement with the State of Israel, which levies royalties on magnesium output alongside potash and bromine (Israel Ministry of Finance, Dead Sea concession briefing, 16 Sep 2024). Esan's plant in Turkey has at various points operated well below nameplate capacity when export prices were weak relative to production costs, illustrating how thin the non-Chinese primary base is and how sensitive it remains to price cycles set largely by Chinese Pidgeon-process output (S&P Global Commodity Insights, 17 May 2016).

3. Shifting US import composition since US Magnesium's exit

Through August 2025, US imports of pure magnesium metal (99.8%) fell 27% year-on-year, while imports of magnesium alloys rose 37% and imports of waste/scrap rose 48% — a shift toward alloy and secondary material as primary metal availability tightened further after US Magnesium's bankruptcy (USGS MCS 2026, magnesium metal).

4. The EU's post-2021 domestic-supply target

On the EU side, magnesium compounds (as distinct from metal) are produced domestically from seawater and natural brines to a significant degree, but magnesium metal remains almost entirely import-reliant. The European Commission set a target after the 2021 crisis to identify projects capable of supplying at least 15% of the EU's magnesium needs domestically by 2030 (S&P Global Commodity Insights, 20 Jun 2022). That target is reinforced by magnesium metal's designation as a Strategic Raw Material under the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act, discussed further in Section 9.

Supply Chain: The Pidgeon Process, China's Fugu Cluster, and the Search for a Cleaner Route

1. How the Pidgeon process works

The Pidgeon process reduces calcined dolomite (a mixed calcium-magnesium carbonate) with ferrosilicon at high temperature (around 1,200°C) under vacuum in small retorts, driving off magnesium vapor that is then condensed and cast into ingot (USGS Open-File Report 01-166, Magnesium Recycling in the United States). The process is thermally driven rather than electrolytic: it needs no magnesium chloride cell and no chlorine handling, which made it cheap to build at small scale across hundreds of rural Chinese sites from the 1990s onward, but the reduction step's high heat requirement, typically met by coal-fired furnaces, produces roughly 25–30 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of magnesium in a typical Chinese Pidgeon plant — several times the carbon intensity of primary aluminum production (Research on the Process, Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions of Magnesium Production, 2023).

2. Fugu county, Shaanxi: the world's magnesium chokepoint

Shaanxi province supplies roughly 50–60% of China's magnesium output, and within Shaanxi, Fugu county's cluster of dozens of small silicothermic smelters is the single largest concentration of primary magnesium capacity on Earth (The Daily Breakdown, 20 Jun 2026). Fugu's plants are typically small (a few thousand to tens of thousands of tonnes per year each), coal-powered, and clustered near cheap local coal and ferrosilicon supply — the same structural features that made the cluster vulnerable to the 2021 electricity-curtailment shock (see Section 1) and that keep the industry's carbon footprint high relative to Western environmental, social and governance (ESG) expectations (Eurometaux, Nov 2021).

3. The electrolytic alternative: magnesium chloride feedstock

The main alternative route reduces magnesium chloride (MgCl₂) electrolytically rather than thermally, drawing feedstock from seawater, natural brines (such as the Dead Sea), or magnesium-rich mineral chlorides rather than calcined dolomite. Electrolytic production is more capital-intensive to build but does not require ferrosilicon reduction and can be powered by low-carbon electricity, giving it a substantially lower CO₂ footprint per tonne when run on clean power — the model used by Israel's Dead Sea Magnesium and by new entrants such as Magrathea Metals in the United States (Materials Transactions, Review on Electrolytic Processes for Magnesium Metal Production, 2025). Historically, dolomite-based thermal reduction (Pidgeon and the related Magnetherm process) and magnesium-chloride electrolysis have coexisted as the two industrial routes to primary metal, with thermal reduction dominant in China and electrolysis dominant in the rest of the world's much smaller primary base (USGS Open-File Report 01-166).

4. Alliance Magnesium (Canada): a third route from mine-waste serpentine

Alliance Magnesium Inc. (Quebec) is developing a hydrometallurgical-plus-electrolytic process that recovers magnesium from serpentine rock tailings left over from decades of chrysotile-asbestos mining around Asbestos and Thetford Mines, Quebec — tailings estimated to contain 23–25% magnesium content across hundreds of millions of tonnes of legacy waste rock (Light Metal Age, Alliance Magnesium pilot plant, 8 Mar 2016). The process leaches serpentine with hydrochloric acid to produce a magnesium chloride brine, which is then purified and electrolyzed — combining elements of the Magnola process developed earlier by Noranda with hydrometallurgical technology from Norsk Hydro — on the site of the former Magnola smelter, and is designed to run on Quebec's low-carbon hydroelectricity (ASM International Heat Treating Society, Alliance Magnesium process description, 23 Feb 2023). Company and independent technical reports describe the approach as generating no direct CO₂ emissions from the ore-processing step itself, in contrast to the Pidgeon process's coal-fired thermal reduction, with a planned commercial-scale target of 50,000 tonnes per year developed in phases (Fundamental Research Corp valuation report on Alliance Magnesium, 2016). As of mid-2026 the project remains at pilot/pre-commercial stage; it has not yet reached the 50,000 t/yr commercial phase originally targeted for 2018.

End Uses & Demand Drivers: Aluminum Alloying, Die-Casting, and the Recycling Loop

1. Aluminum alloying: magnesium's largest global end use

Globally, aluminum alloying is magnesium's single largest application, historically consuming roughly a third to 40% of world magnesium metal demand — magnesium is added to aluminum to increase strength, corrosion resistance, and weldability in products ranging from beverage cans to automotive sheet and aerospace-grade plate (USITC, Magnesium Price Spike: A Flash in the Pan?, Working Paper). One industry representative told the U.S. International Trade Commission that “there are no substitutes for magnesium in aluminum sheet and billet production,” warning that “if magnesium supply stops, the entire auto industries will potentially be forced to stop” (USITC Working Paper). In the United States specifically, alloying aluminum accounted for about 21% of primary magnesium applications in 2022, behind die-casting (USGS Minerals Yearbook 2022, magnesium metal).

2. Automotive die-casting: Volkswagen, Ford, and the lightweighting push

Die-casting was the largest single U.S. application for primary magnesium in 2022, at 59% of consumption, driven by automotive components such as steering-column parts, seat frames, instrument-panel beams, transmission cases, and radiator supports (USGS Minerals Yearbook 2022, magnesium metal). Magnesium alloys are roughly 33% lighter than aluminum and 75% lighter than steel, which is why European automakers including Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz have adopted thin-wall magnesium die-castings for body-panel applications, while American manufacturers use magnesium castings in components such as the Ford F-150's radiator support and the Lincoln MKT's liftgate inner panel — the first magnesium die-cast closure to meet 55 mph rear-crash requirements (Mordor Intelligence, North America Automotive Parts Magnesium Die Casting Market). Ford separately ran a multi-year Cost Reduced Magnesium Die Castings (CORMAG) program with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to lower the cost of magnesium die-casting for structural automotive parts, including a 2004 F-150 front-end support assembly and a 2005 Ford GT instrument-panel structure (Magnesium Advances and Applications in North America, conference paper).

3. Aerospace alloys: Airbus, Boeing, and the 7000-series legacy

As covered in Section 4, magnesium's aerospace role is chiefly as an alloying element in 7000-series aluminum (alloy 7075 and related grades) used across airframes, wing spars, and landing-gear components for both Boeing and Airbus platforms as well as military aircraft; the alloy family has been the aerospace industry's structural workhorse since its 1945 standardization (7075 aluminium alloy technical reference). Magnesium die-cast components are also used directly in aircraft interiors, housings, and select structural fittings where its low density offers a further weight-saving margin beyond aluminum alone, and industry reports have noted growing interest in incorporating magnesium-alloyed aluminum more extensively into commercial aircraft designs (USITC Working Paper, Magnesium Price Spike: A Flash in the Pan?).

4. Recycling: closed-loop die-casting scrap and the secondary supply chain

Recycled (secondary) magnesium is a structurally important part of U.S. supply given the absence of domestic primary production. In 2025, an estimated 26,000 tons of secondary magnesium was recovered from old scrap and 82,000 tons from new (in-process) scrap, for a combined secondary recovery of roughly 108,000 tons — of which about 53% was recovered in the form of aluminum-base alloys and 47% as magnesium-based castings, ingot, and other material (USGS MCS 2026, magnesium metal). “New scrap” — runners, gates, and rejected parts generated directly on die-casting shop floors and typically remelted in a closed loop at or near the casting plant — consistently represents the majority of secondary magnesium recovery, reflecting how tightly integrated die-casting scrap recycling has become within the automotive supply chain (USGS Open-File Report 01-166, Magnesium Recycling in the United States). With zero U.S. primary output since 2022, this recycled stream plus imports are the only two sources of magnesium metal available to American die-casters and aluminum producers (Light Metal Age, 5 May 2025).

Trade Policy: The 2005 US Antidumping Order on Chinese Magnesium and the EU's Strategic Classification

1. Origins: the 2004–2005 antidumping investigation

The U.S. International Trade Commission's (USITC) antidumping proceeding on pure magnesium from China is docketed as Investigation No. 731-TA-696, one of the Commission's older active metals orders; a parallel antidumping order also covers magnesium alloy from China, which the USITC voted to continue in a separate sunset review in 2016 (S&P Global Commodity Insights, 17 Jun 2016). The pure-magnesium order has already passed through multiple statutory sunset reviews, including a fifth review culminating in 2023, reflecting the persistence of the underlying dumping finding against Chinese producers over nearly two decades (Federal Register, Pure Magnesium from China, Final Results of Expedited Fifth Sunset Review, 13 Jun 2022).

2. The quinquennial review process and its 2023 result

Under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, antidumping orders must be reviewed by the USITC and the Department of Commerce every five years to determine whether revoking the order would likely lead to a recurrence of dumping and injury. The USITC instituted its fifth-year review of the pure magnesium order on 1 March 2022, and after finding the domestic industry's response adequate and the Chinese respondents' response inadequate, voted on 6 June 2022 to conduct a full review. The Commission's final determination, issued in 2023, concluded that revoking the order “would be likely to lead to continuation or recurrence of material injury within a reasonably foreseeable time,” and the order therefore remained in place (USITC press release, Pure Magnesium from China sunset review determination, 2023). The public report is published as Pure Magnesium from China, Inv. No. 731-TA-696 (Fifth Review), USITC Publication 5420, May 2023 (USITC Publication 5420). A further, more recent sunset review round has since reaffirmed the order, with industry press reporting the Commission's continuation of the underlying antidumping measures (Shanghai Metals Market, USITC sunset review coverage, 13 Feb 2026).

3. Why the order persists: structural Chinese overcapacity

The order's durability reflects the structural cost gap between Chinese Pidgeon-process production — low-capex, coal-powered, and historically able to undercut Western and electrolytic producers on price — and the higher-cost alternatives available elsewhere. China's overwhelming share of global capacity (see Section 7) leaves few non-Chinese producers to argue against continuing the trade remedy at each five-year review, and the order has functioned as one of the few durable policy tools available to the small remaining Western magnesium industry.

4. The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act: magnesium's classification and limits

The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1252), which entered into force in May 2024, lists magnesium metal as a Strategic Raw Material, reflecting the near-total EU import dependence exposed by the 2021 crisis (see Section 1). Under the CRMA's 2030 benchmarks, the EU aims to extract at least 10%, process at least 40%, and recycle at least 15% of its annual strategic raw material consumption domestically, with no single third country supplying more than 65% of the bloc's consumption of any strategic raw material (Jacques Delors Centre, Meeting the Costs of Resilience: The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act). Industry analysis notes an important limit to the CRMA's reach on magnesium: the regulation covers the processed metal itself but does not list magnesium's common raw feedstocks — dolomite, brucite, olivine, serpentine, or magnesite — among the EU's Critical Raw Materials, meaning the Act's mining and permitting incentives do not automatically extend upstream to the ore inputs a European magnesium smelter would need (LinkedIn analysis, What Does the CRM Act in Europe Mean for the Magnesium Industry Until 2030?, 9 Jul 2024). Separately, a coalition under the “Magnesium for Europe” (MFE) initiative has pressed the European Commission to treat magnesium metal production capacity as a strategic project candidate under the CRMA, arguing the metal remains a “gateway” input the bloc cannot source domestically at any meaningful scale (Magnesium for Europe, DG GROW/DG NEAR Western Balkans presentation, 25 Apr 2024).

Timeline 2020–2026 — How Magnesium Became a Critical Mineral

A compact chronology of the events that turned magnesium from an overlooked bulk commodity into a recognized Western supply-chain vulnerability, from the 2021 European crisis through the loss of US primary production and the government-backed effort to rebuild it.