Everyone pictures titanium as jets and hip implants. But over 95% of the titanium mined each year becomes white TiO2 pigment, the colour in paint, plastic, sunscreen and paper. Only a sliver, about 320,000 tonnes, is refined into metal, and China makes most of it. Where titanium really goes, and who controls it. 2024 (USGS) · Compiled June 2026
Titanium metal output 2024
320 kt
sponge metal, a sliver of the ore
China's share of the metal
69%
about 220 of 320 kt
Mined as mineral ore
9.4 Mt
over 95% becomes white pigment
Sponge price 2024
$13 / kg
up from $10.6 in 2020
Where the World's Titanium Metal Is Made (2024)
Colour intensity shows each country's share of titanium sponge, the metal, production. Hover a country for its tonnage. The metal supply is far more concentrated than the ore, and one country dominates.
Lower shareHigher share
2024 Titanium Sponge Production by Country (kt)
China makes about four times the next producer. Japan is a distant second, then Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan split most of what is left.
The Ore Comes From Elsewhere (mineral concentrates, kt TiO2)
Titanium ore, ilmenite and rutile, comes from a more spread-out set of countries. China leads here too, but with about a third, not two-thirds. The choke point is making metal, not finding ore.
320,000 tonnes of metal a year, made tangible.
The element is abundant, but turning ore into metal is slow and energy-hungry, so very little titanium metal is made and it stays valuable. Verify-and-cite figures in the footer.
10 kg
every second
The world makes about 10 kg of titanium metal every second of the year.
17x
more goes to paint
For every tonne of titanium made into metal, about 17 tonnes becomes white pigment.
45%
lighter than steel
As strong as many steels at about 45% less weight, the reason jets and implants use it.
69%
from one country
China makes more than two-thirds of the world's titanium metal.
Titanium Metal vs Every Other Metal (annual world production, Mt)
As a metal, titanium is tiny, about 0.32 Mt a year, near cobalt and lithium. As an element it is one of the most abundant in the crust. The bottleneck is making the metal, not finding it.
Paint vs Everything Else
Here is the surprise. Over 95% of the titanium mined each year never becomes metal. It becomes TiO2, the brightest white pigment we have, used in paint, plastics, paper, sunscreen and toothpaste.
Where the Metal Goes
The small slice that does become metal is mostly aerospace, where its strength-to-weight ratio is unmatched, plus chemical plants, marine hardware, and medical implants.
The Two Titaniums
Titanium has a split identity. The element is everywhere, the ninth most abundant in the Earth's crust, and most of it ends its life as a humble white powder: the opacity in your wall paint, the white of paper and plastic, the block in your sunscreen. That is the multi-billion-dollar TiO2 pigment business. The glamorous titanium, the jet-engine and hip-implant metal, is real but rare. Pulling the metal out of the ore takes the Kroll process, which is slow, batch-based and energy-hungry, and that keeps titanium metal expensive and production small. So the same element is both one of the most common materials around you and one of the most prized engineering metals there is.
China's titanium metal
69%
of world sponge production
China's pigment capacity
~56%
about 5.5 of 9.8 Mt
China's titanium ore
~1/3
of world ilmenite
Sponge price 2024
$13/kg
steady rise, no crash
China's Grip Across the Whole Chain (% of world)
China does not just make the metal. It leads the ore and dominates the pigment too, the only country strong at every stage of the titanium chain.
The Price Keeps Rising (titanium sponge, USD per kg)
Unlike cobalt, titanium metal has not crashed. The price has climbed steadily, driven by aerospace demand and the cost of refining. USGS landed value.
The Supply-Chain Story
Titanium's supply story is less about scarcity and more about processing power. The ore is mined across China, Mozambique, South Africa and Australia, so the raw material is reasonably spread out. The bottleneck is turning it into metal, and that takes the Kroll process. China has built that at scale: about 69% of the world's titanium sponge, on top of roughly a third of the ore and more than half of global pigment capacity. Japan and Russia are the other serious sponge makers. For aerospace nations that depend on titanium for airframes and jet engines, that much of the metal coming from one country is a strategic worry, which is why the West treats titanium metal as a critical material.
Why It Matters
Titanium is two materials wearing one name. As an element it is abundant and cheap, and most of it lives quietly as the white pigment in paint, plastic and sunscreen. As a metal it is rare, costly and strategic, the backbone of jet engines, airframes, submarines and the implants inside millions of people. What separates the two is not geology but processing: the Kroll process is the slow, energy-hungry step that turns common ore into a prized metal, and China has built more of that capacity than anyone. So the titanium question is not whether we run out, the crust is full of it. It is whether the countries that fly, fight and heal with titanium metal are comfortable that most of the world's metal, ore and pigment now runs through a single country.