Tantalum prices have found support due to tightness of supply and concerns about obtaining material during the continued lockdowns in central African countries imposed to control the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Prices have been moving up over the past month, with buyers struggling to find cheap prompt units due to the increased worries about the future availability of material, market sources said. Tantalum prices were now at their highest since the beginning of the year.The price for tantalum concentrates started the year around $58-59 per lb, but has moved up to around $65 per lb in the weeks since the lockdown measures in Rwanda were announced, according to market sources.Tantalum mined in Central Africa - in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi - accounted for around 70% of global tantalum metal and tantalum concentrate output, according to market sources, with Rwanda supplying the majority of this material.Rwanda was the first country in sub-Saharan...