Page "Tantalum" Paragraph 17

The primary mining of tantalum is in Australia, where the largest producer, Global Advanced Metals, formerly known as Talison Minerals, operates two mines in Western Australia, Greenbushes in the Southwest and Wodgina in the Pilbara region.

The Wodgina mine was reopened in January 2011 after mining at the site was suspended in late-2008 due to the global financial crisis.

Less than a year after it reopened, Global Advanced Metals announced that due to again "... softening tantalum demand ...", and other factors, tantalum mining operations were to cease at the end of February 2012.

Wodgina produces a primary tantalum concentrate which is further upgraded at the Greenbushes operation before being sold to customers.

Whereas the large-scale producers of niobium are in Brazil and Canada, the ore there also yields a small percentage of tantalum.

Some other countries such as China, Ethiopia, and Mozambique mine ores with a higher percentage of tantalum, and they produce a significant percentage of the world's output of it.

Tantalum is also produced in Thailand and Malaysia as a by-product of the tin mining there.

During gravitational separation of the ores from placer deposits, not only is Cassiterite ( SnO < sub > 2 </ sub >) found, but a small percentage of tantalite also included.

The slag from the tin smelters then contains economically useful amounts of tantalum, which is leached from the slag.

Future sources of supply of tantalum, in order of estimated size, are being explored in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greenland, China, Mozambique, Canada, Australia, the United States, Finland, and Brazil.