Tellurium occupies an unusual position among critical minerals. The US Geological Survey recommended dropping it from the 2025 Critical Minerals List after a quantitative economic screen concluded that recent gains in domestic supply had lowered its risk profile. The Departments of War, Energy, and Agriculture rejected that finding, and the Secretary of the Interior retained tellurium among the 60 minerals on the final list published in November 2025.

The reversal rested on the military’s reliance on mercury cadmium telluride infrared detectors, for which no ready substitute exists in thermal imaging and missile seekers. The supply picture complicates that judgment.

China refines roughly 80 percent of the world’s tellurium and imposed export controls in February 2025 that the November 2025 trade understanding left fully in force, even as Beijing eased parallel restrictions on gallium, germanium, and antimony.

US warehouse prices have risen about 60 percent since the controls took effect, and the United States still operates no plant capable of refining tellurium metal from the copper telluride intermediate produced at its two domestic smelters. As a result, the supply chain for tellurium remains in flux and beholden to policymakers and national security stratagem.

Tellerium Background and Context

Tellurium is among the rarest stable elements in the upper crust, present at roughly three parts per billion. More than 90 percent of global supply is recovered as a byproduct of electrolytic copper refining, where tellurium, selenium, gold, and silver collect in the anode slimes that form as impure copper anodes dissolve.