Revaluation of the value of small metal molybdenum
The "supporting role" in steel in the past has now become the "protagonist" in the semiconductor and AI computing power tracks. Since the beginning of this year, the price of the molybdenum industry chain has risen, hitting a new high in the past three years. This small metal is ushering in its own highlight moment in the wave of new energy and high-end manufacturing. Molybdenum is a strategic rare metal with high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, high conductivity and high stability. Molybdenum materials have a wide range of application scenarios and are key just-needed materials for chip coatings, semiconductor substrates, AI server heat dissipation components, and optoelectronic devices.
Since then, the consumption structure of molybdenum has been dominated by industry, and about 80% is used in the production of special steel. The strength, toughness and heat resistance of steel are improved by adding molybdenum elements, and it is widely used in high-end machinery, auto parts and military equipment; Consumption in chemical catalysis, medicine, agriculture and other fields accounted for about 10%. At present, memory chip upgrades and photovoltaic technology innovations have driven the industrial trend of "replacing tungsten with molybdenum". The demand for high-purity molybdenum materials, molybdenum alloys, molybdenum targets and other products has grown rapidly, completely reshaping the consumption structure and industrial positioning of molybdenum metal.
Our country has the world's leading molybdenum resource endowment. According to the 2025 data of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the proven reserves of molybdenum resources in the world are about 17 million tons of metal. Super-large molybdenum resources such as Luanchuan in China and Shapinggou in Anhui have outstanding advantages, and the domestic reserves are close to half of the global total. one. Global molybdenum resources are highly concentrated, with China, the United States, Peru, Chile, and Russia accounting for 94.12% of the total reserves. In terms of output, the global molybdenum mine output will be 260,000 tons in 2025, a slight increase of 1.56% year-on-year; Among them, China's output is 97,000 tons, accounting for 37.31% of the world's total output, ranking first in the world.
At present, the global molybdenum supply pattern is characterized by shrinking stock and lack of increment. Molybdenum is mostly associated ore, which is produced by porphyry copper mines. In recent years, the ore grades of major mines in the world have declined. Most old mining areas are expected to enter the end of mining in the mid-2030s. The investment in new mines is large, the cycle is long, and the upgrade of resource export protection policies in many countries is superimposed, and the global supply elasticity is weak. In the past two years, there has been no large-scale new production capacity in China, and the production reduction of old mines has further offset the small increase, and the industry's production capacity ceiling has tightened.
Su Jianqin, general manager of Xi'an Future New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., analyzed in an interview with a reporter from China Industry News that the current round of molybdenum market has experienced periodic tight supply and large price fluctuations. The core lies in the two-way changes at both ends of supply and demand. "In 2025, the state will implement the control of tungsten and molybdenum mining quotas, and simultaneously increase the rectification of illegal mining of minerals. The domestic mining quotas have been lowered. The growth rate of molybdenum concentrate supply is far lower than the growth rate of downstream demand, and the volume of supplements by imports Very limited; on the other hand, the demand for emerging industries such as new energy, wind power, and nuclear power has increased, and the supply has shrunk and the demand has increased, which has directly pushed up the current round of molybdenum prices."
With the implementation of the new version of the "Regulations for the Implementation of the Mineral Resources Law" in June 2026, molybdenum has been clearly included in the national strategic minerals, and total volume regulation, planning control, and protective mining have been implemented to further lock the upper limit of supply from the policy level. The data shows that in the first half of 2026, the domestic output of molybdenum concentrate is about 160,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of only 2.8%, and the growth rate of supply lags significantly behind the growth rate of demand. Among them, the effective supply of high-grade molybdenum concentrate from January to May was less than 8,000 tons, accounting for only 4.4% of the total supply, and the shortage of high-end raw material supply was prominent. The tight balance between supply and demand has pushed up molybdenum prices. My steel network monitoring data shows that on July 24, the average price of domestic 45%-50% grade molybdenum concentrate reached 5,325 yuan/ton degree, an increase of about 41% within the year; The spot price of mainstream 60-grade ferromolybdenum rose to 333,000 yuan/basis ton, and the prices of the two core products both set new highs in the past three years.
The demand side presents a dual pattern of rigid demand and stable demand and expansion of emerging tracks. The demand for special steel is resilient. In the first half of 2026, the total number of ferro molybdenum tenders for domestic steel mills was 82,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 6%. The demand for molybdenum-based materials in chemical catalysis fields such as refining and With the incremental release of emerging fields, high-purity molybdenum materials have become the core materials of advanced process chips and high-end photovoltaic cells, and the industry application space has opened up.
There is a gap between supply and demand, which is also reflected in import and export data. The gap in domestic molybdenum demand has expanded. In 2025, domestic molybdenum ore imports will be 62,400 tons, a year-on-year increase of 4% The export volume was only 6,400 tons, a sharp drop of 35.04% year-on-year, and the dependence on external resource supplementation increased.
Build an independent and controllable industrial chain based on resource advantages
Regarding the judgment of the market cycle, Su Jianqin made it clear that the upward trend of molybdenum prices is not a short-term market fluctuation, but a medium-term growth trend supported by solid fundamentals. He explained that the pace of domestic tungsten and molybdenum ore exploration is slow, and the local incremental space is limited under the constraints of policy quotas; In recent years, there have been no large-scale tungsten and molybdenum mines newly built and put into operation overseas. It takes at least 3 to 5 years for a new mine to go from exploration to production. At the same time, protectionism in the global mining field is on the rise. Countries have tightened resource export controls, and overseas supplementary channels are also limited. It is difficult for the annual increase in global supply to match the growing demand for downstream high-end manufacturing.
Su Jianqin put forward five specific suggestions for ensuring the supply, stabilizing prices and industrial upgrading of molybdenum resources in my country: First, increase the exploration of domestic tungsten and molybdenum resources; The second is to severely crack down on illegal activities such as illegal mining and smuggling of minerals; The third is to actively deploy overseas mining rights and broaden diversified import channels; The fourth is to flexibly regulate mining quotas, carry out strategic purchase and storage in a timely manner, and stabilize price fluctuations; The fifth is to increase the application technology research and development of molybdenum materials in high-end fields such as semiconductors and optoelectronic displays.
In terms of relying on superior resources to cultivate new quality productivity and build an independent and controllable new material industry chain, Su Jianqin believes that my country is a country with a large industrial chain of tungsten and molybdenum resource mining, processing, and application, and has an innate industrial foundation. Industrial clusters can be built around high value-added links such as mine exploration, smelting and purification, and high-purity molybdenum finishing, focusing on high-end manufacturing fields such as benchmarking, ships, and semiconductors, relying on resource and technological advantages to participate in the division of labor in the global industrial chain, and create an internationally competitive Molybdenum-based new material products to build an independent and controllable strategic industrial chain.
