World’s barite resources as critical raw material

The relevance of the work is connected with the status of barite as a critical mineral raw material, as accepted in most industrialized countries.

Purpose: to study the dynamics of commodity flows (production, import, export, consumption) of barite throughout the countries, its world prices, sources of barite raw materials and the prospects for its production and consumption.

Methods: statistical, graphic, logical.

Results. The production of barite raw materials from 0,3 Mt/year in 1920s grew intensively and reached 8.0–9.6 Mt/year in the 2010. Initially, both the mining and processing of barite raw materials industries were located directly in the USA, Germany, Britain, Italy, and France. These countries accounted for over 90% of world production and 80–95% of world consumption. In the 1950s, a sharp increase in the consumption of barite as a weighting agent for drilling fluids began. This led to an increase in its production in large oil and gas producing countries (the USA, the USSR, Mexico, Canada), export flows (from Morocco and other countries), and cessation of exports from Germany, Britain and France. The share of international trade in barite also increased from 0,3–0,5 Mt/year in the 1950s to 4.2–6.0 Mt/year (55–70% of his income) in the 2010s. The cumulative world production of barite between 1920–2020 is expected to be 550 Mt. World barite resources in deposits prepared for exploitation are estimated at 740 Mt. The group of critical countries importing barite raw materials (imports over 50%) represents 38.8% of the GDP of the world economy (USA, European Union, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Kuwait, Norway, Oman, Algeria, Malaysia, Indonesia, UAE, Azerbaijan, Argentina). The group of countries exporting barite raw materials includes 31.0% of the GDP of the world economy (India, Morocco, China, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Iran, Laos, Mexico, Pakistan, Bulgaria. A decrease in the criticality of barite raw material supply is possible as a result in reducing consumption (Japan, France, Italy and the Czech Republic), increasing world barite production with the commissioning of new deposits, given the significant prepared resources of this raw material in Iran, Kazakhstan and Pakistan, as well as the search for new barite deposits, including chemogenic marine bottom sediments.

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