Atacama Minerals’ Aguas Blancas mine, Chile:
The Atacama is the driest desert in the world
Atacama Minerals
The past nine months have been an unusual blip in one of the most stable industrial mineral industries. The Tohoku earthquake, water shortages in Chile and robust demand combined to create a perfect storm, blowing iodine spot prices up to record levels.
Events showed that in a finely-balanced industry with few producers, small disruptions on the supply side can have a disproportionately large effect on the global market.
The global iodine industry is characterised by the dominance of Chile, Japan and the US, which together supply over 95% of the world’s demand. And with annual demand at around 30,000 tonnes, it is a relatively low-volume business.
The supply side is concentrated, but iodine use is spread widely across over 10 main applications, led by x-ray contrast media, biocides, pharmaceuticals and...