Traders in niobium are giddy with forecasts of perpetual growth in the demand for this metal. The global pandemic in 2020 may have taken a little wind out of their sails but, overall, it does seem like demand consistently outstrips supply as it meets a bottleneck in production. Brazil, by far the largest producer, has an output of just 200 tons of metallic niobium annually. The rest, possibly as much as 50,000 tons, winds up in the pre-alloy named ferroniobium which is bound for the high-end steel alloy industry.

As seen elsewhere on this website, niobium creates beautiful colors when extremely thin layers of oxide are applied through the process of anodization. Your ounce bar can be optionally anodized in several different colors the better to make it stand out more against those boring gray metals in your collection!