National panorama of niobium between 2010 and 2014

Abstract

Mining is the extraction activity of a mineral good from the earth's crust. Niobium (Nb) is the element of no. 41 in the periodic table of chemical elements, such as transition metal, with its degree of hardness on the mohs scale equal to 6. The main niobium products of industrial interest are currently ferroniobium, niobium pentoxide vacuum alloys and metallic niobium. Brazil is the holder of the largest mineral reserves and leads the market when talking about Niobium, currently its reserves are estimated around 842,460.00 tons with an average content of 0.73% of Nb2O5. With the addition of new policies and contract renewals, Brazil has consolidated its position in the international market, having as main consumers the United States, Japan, Holland, China, Germany, Canada, South Korea, Russia and the United Kingdom. The rise in the price of oil in the period from 2003 to July 2008 made possible new exploration projects and the maintenance of deactivated transmission lines, which required greater production of steel pipes with resistance to heat and low temperatures, which boosted investments in new studies of the use of substances that met the demand , thus growing the internal market of Niobium.