Mineral commodities

Gold, Annual Reports Mineral Commodity Summaries Minerals Yearbooks Mineralindusty Surveys Mineral Trade Motes, U.S. Dept, of Interior, Bureau of Miues, Washington, D.C. 

Table 2. 1992 World Production of Principal Mineral Commodities...

The estimated value of world cmde mineral production in 1992 was 1.6 trillion ia terms of 1992 dollars, a tenfold increase since 1950 in terms of constant dollars (4). This represents the value of mineral materials as mined or otherwise extracted from the earth, and does not reflect the value added through processing. The aimual world consumption of selected mineral commodities for 1992 is given in Table 4. 

A conservative estimate of the total value of the products from the mineral industry is ca 3.9 trillion ia terms of 1992 dollars (4). This estimate does not include the value of products derived from secondary sources such as recycling (qv) or reclamation. Secondary recovery is significant for certain commodities. For example, in 1992 ca 30% of the world steel (qv) production, 46% of the world refined lead output, 15% of the world refined copper (qv) production, and ca 30% of the aluminum (see Aluminumand ALUMINUM alloys) output from the Western world were clearly identified as being derived from scrap. The value of the world mineral commodity export trade in 1992 was ca 616,698 million ia 1992 dollars. This accounted for ca 18% of all commodities exported (4). 

Platinum Group Metals in Mineral Commodity Summaries 1992 U.S. Bureau of Miaes, Washington, D.C., 1992. 

R. H. Singleton, Potash Mineral Commodity, Profiles MCPll, U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Washington, D.C., Feb. 1978, pp. 12-13. 

Sulfur is unusual compared to most large mineral commodities in that the largest portion of sulfur is used as a chemical reagent rather than as a component of a finished product. Its predominant use as a process chemical generally requires that it first be converted to an intermediate chemical product prior to use in industry. In most of the ensuing chemical reactions between these sulfur-containing intermediate products and other minerals and chemicals, the sulfur values are not retained. Rather, the sulfur values are most often discarded as a component of the waste product. 

G. Choppin,. Rydberg, andJ. O. Liljenzin, Tadiochemistry andNuclear Chemistry, 2nd ed., Butterworth-Heinemarm Ltd., Oxford, 1995 J. B. Hednck in U.S. Bureau of Mines, Mineral Commodity Summaries, Washington, D.C., Jan. 1995. 

Zn, Ni, Cu, and W, yet is the seventh most abundant element overall because Cr is concentrated in the earth s core and mantle (1,2). It has atomic number 24 and belongs to Group 6 (VIB) of the Periodic Table and is positioned between vanadium and manganese. Other Group 6 members are molybdenum and tungsten. On a toimage basis, chromium ranks fourth among the metals and thirteenth of aU mineral commodities in commercial production. 

A U.S. Bureau of Mines survey covering 202 froth flotation plants in the United States showed that 198 million tons of material were treated by flotation in 1960 to recover 20 million tons of concentrates which contained approximately 1 billion in recoverable products. Most of the worlds copper, lead, zinc, molybdenum, and nickel are produced from ores that are concentrated first by flotation. In addition, flotation is commonly used for the recoveiy of fine coal and for the concentration of a wide range of mineral commodities including fluorspar, barite, glass sand, iron oxide, pyrite, manganese ore, clay, feldspar, mica, sponumene, bastnaesite, calcite, garnet, kyanite, and talc. 

SmithGR. 1998. Lead lead statistics and information, mineral commodity summary, 1998. U.S. Department of the Interior - U.S. Geological Survey. http //minerals.er.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/conunoditv/lead/... 

Kelly T., Buckingham D., DiFrancesco C., Porter K., Goonan T., Sznopek J., Berry C., Cran M. Elistorical statistics for mineral commodities in the United States. U.S. Geological Survey, 2002. 

In 1973, global consumption of nickel was 660,000 tons and that of the United States 235,000 tons (Sevin 1980). End uses of nickel in the United States in 1973 were transportation (21%), chemicals (15%), electrical goods (13%), fabricated metal products (10%), petroleum (9%), construction (9%), machinery (7%), and household appliances (7% IARC 1976). A similar pattern was evident for 1985 (Table 6.3). In 1988, 40% of all nickel intermediate products consumed was in the production of steel 21% was in alloys, 17% in electroplating, and 12% in super alloys (USPHS 1993). The pattern for 1985 was similar (Table 6.3). In Canada, nickel is the fourth most important mineral commodity behind copper, zinc, and gold. In 1990, Canada produced 197,000 tons of nickel worth 2.02 billion dollars and was the second largest global producer of that metal (Chau and Kulikovsky-Cordeiro 1995). Most of the nickel used in the United States is imported from Canada and secondarily from Australia and New Caledonia (USPHS 1977). 

Reese, R.G. 1991. Silver. Pages 148-149 in Mineral Commodity Summaries 1991. U.S. Bur. Mines, Washington, DC 20241. 

U.S. Bureau of Mines. 1980. Mineral Commodity Summaries 1980. Avail, from U.S. Govern. Print. Off. as 1979-603-002/128. 

Mineral classifiers, types of, 16 619-622 Mineral commodities, world and U.S. 

The US Geological Survey (USGS) produces annual mineral commodity summaries, from which it is possible to crudely estimate reserve lifetimes (Figure 1.2). 

Source From U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2006, http //minerais.er.usgs.gov/minerais/pubs/mcs/200 mcs2006.pdf. 

Property acquisitions represent an alternative to the risks associated with traditional exploration, and available to companies and countries with sufficient cash-on-hand or with joint-venture partners. Because many mineral properties are substantially undervalued, acquisitions represent an economically-favorable manner of securing future mineral resources, allowing companies and state entities to prepare for the next upswing in mineral commodity demand in addition, acquiring future resources provides some measure of economic security in that a source of minerals commodities is essentially guaranteed. 

It is apparent that the need for a secure supply of mineral commodities is currently driving some countries, and forward-thinking companies, to continue to acquire, prospect for, evaluate, and enter into feasibility studies of, potential near-term mining properties. In some cases, properties are being prepared for immediate production by either completing construction of mining infrastructure or by expansion of existing mine and mill capacities. The idea is to have a property ready to increase production or to be put into production when commodity prices rebound, and to do so more quickly than... 

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