GF Securities: Tantalum metal supply bottlenecks are difficult to solve, demand benefits from the boom in the AI industry
The Zhitong Finance App learned that Guangfa Securities released a research report saying that from the supply side, global tantalum supply is currently highly dependent on hand ore from African countries such as the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda. Production stability is weak, and a large number of potential new projects are still in the exploration or research stage, making it difficult to supplement supply in the short term; from the demand side, the continued increase in capital expenditure in the AI sector continues to drive demand for AI-related tantalum capacitors. The high downstream boom is expected to support the upward trend in the tantalum consumption center. Therefore, the bank believes that supply and demand in the tantalum industry will continue to tighten and support the rise in tantalum prices.
The main views of GF Securities are as follows:
A critical strategic small metal that is scarce and difficult to melt
The abundance of tantalum crust is extremely low (only about 1-2 ppm), and has a high melting point (2980℃), strong corrosion resistance, and excellent dielectric properties. In terms of resource distribution, proven reserves in the world are highly concentrated in Australia and Brazil (accounting for more than 90% in total), but supply release from Australia and Pakistan is slow due to associated mining and high costs; although core African production areas such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda contribute nearly 80% of global production, mostly surface-weathered sand ore and artisanal small-scale mining (ASM), proven reserves that meet international standards are scarce. The overall resource endowment is extremely unbalanced and seriously underdeveloped.
Supply side: Geographic disturbances are frequent, and potential additional production capacity is limited
The African manual mining model determines that its supply chain is highly vulnerable and opaque. In January and March 2026, large-scale landslides occurred at the Rubaya mining area in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which accounts for about 15% of global supply, and completely stopped production, leading to a sharp widening of the global supply gap and driving up tantalum prices. It is also difficult for non-African production regions to provide supply elasticity: Australian hard rock tantalum ore is mostly associated with lithium ore, and high mining costs are compounded by lithium cycle disturbances, and production capacity release seriously lags behind reserves; Brazil, as the second-largest supplier, production has declined significantly from peak periods in recent years; most of China's resources are low-grade, difficult to select poor mines, and external dependence remains high. Judging from the progress of new global projects, more than half of the world's tantalum projects are still in the early stages of exploration or feasibility studies. The mine development cycle is generally long, making it difficult to form an effective large-scale supply in the short term.
Demand side: AI demand opens up a new boom cycle
The largest downstream consumer of tantalum is tantalum capacitors (accounting for 33%). Due to the surge in power consumption and the increase in transient response requirements for power supply, AI servers pushed the usage and value of stand-alone polymer tantalum capacitors to rise simultaneously. Leading manufacturers such as Guoju and KEMET increased their commercial performance and continued to raise product prices, and domestic tantalum powder exports on the raw material side maintained a sharp increase. In addition, the rise in the proportion of advanced process wafers below 28 nm is driving the rapid release of tantalum targets for semiconductor copper interconnection barriers, and superimposed aero engines and industrial gas turbines are driving demand for tantalum for high-end nickel-based superalloys. The boom in the AI industry is expected to support the upward shift in the tantalum consumption center.
Risk warning. The risk of macroeconomic fluctuations, the risk of downstream applications falling short of expectations, and the risk of supply-side capacity release exceeding expectations.