U.S. Titanium Supply Chain Needed for National Security
The U.S. Interior Department has declared titanium one of the 35 mineral commodities that are vital to U.S. economic and national security. The strong, lightweight metal is integral to a broad range of high-tech uses in defense, space exploration, and electric vehicles.
Unfortunately, the U.S. produces virtually no titanium. It relies on imports for more than 90 percent of its titanium ore, the material needed to produce titanium metal. America now has no domestic titanium metal production since the last American plant that made titanium sponge — a porous form of titanium from the first stage of processing the metal — closed in Henderson, Nevada.
U.S. dependence on foreign sources of titanium puts American interests at risk, especially since China and Russia have a large and growing share of the world titanium market.
President Biden has made clear that he is worried about supply chain dangers like this one. On February 24th, he signed an Executive Order that directs federal agencies to secure and strengthen America’s supply chains. The titanium supply chain is certainly among those that need to be addressed.
One way to do so is for the government to foster a domestic titanium ore-to-metal supply chain in the U.S. Luckily, the private sector is already moving in that direction with the development of a large titanium project named the Titan Project near Camden, Tenn. The project would mine titanium ore and then produce titanium metal in an environmentally sustainable way.
To be sure, titanium ore is produced in the southern Georgia and northern Florida near Jacksonville. But the amount is relatively small; again, the U.S. remains 90 percent reliant on imports. No U.S. operations are converting titanium ore into titanium metal. Two of the three largest global producers of titanium metal, China and Russia, are military and economic rivals of the U.S. Their environmental and labor policies also are substandard.
Titanium and titanium alloys are used in high value areas of the U.S. economy, including high-performance aerospace and automotive components, chemical processing equipment and medical implants. Increasing domestic production of both titanium ores and titanium metals would reduce Americans’ exposure to international price volatility and supply shocks for these important products.
Titanium processing and mining would also create high-paying jobs. The U.S. has a large pool of labor well suited to the mining of titanium ores and the production of titanium metal, especially in rural communities like those in Tennessee.
China is the world’s largest producer of titanium metal. Its production has increased 22-fold since 2000. During the same period, U.S. capacity has fallen to nil. Japan, the second leading producer, is the main supplier of titanium metal to the U.S. The world’s third largest producer is Russia.
But China and Russia can upend the global supply chain by undercutting Japan. With tensions rising between the U.S. and both China and Russia, the chance of that happening is increasingly likely.
That’s why the U.S. government should take steps to bolster domestic production. One way to do so is to mandate that titanium ores and titanium metals used in the fabrication of military hardware be sourced entirely from the U.S. The U.S. government should also consider broad “buy American” requirements for other agencies that use the metal. President Biden has said that is his intention with all sorts of items purchased by the federal government; titanium should be among them.
The U.S. government should also increase funding for long-term research of innovative ways to mine and process titanium. Federal funding would accelerate the ability of U.S.-based companies to not only produce titanium products but to do so in ways that are more environmentally sound than in China and Russia.
The pandemic has made policy makers more aware of the dangers of broken supply chains. Those lessons need to be applied even as COVID-19 fades. Titanium — one of the key components of high-tech wizardry — should become a model for how the U.S. can secure vital supply chains in the post-pandemic era.
Anastasios Arima is managing director and co-founder of Hyperion Metals Ltd., which owns the Titan Project in Tennessee.
