When and how did the West lose its dependency on the USSR for titanium?

Question

This question was prompted by another one.

A long time ago, before I well-documented my internet research, I looked into the history of titanium, its procurement, refinement, and work-ability. I cannot remember any sources beyond a few Wikipedia articles that have since changed significantly. I was fascinated by this metal for several reasons: It was only available in the Soviet Union (and Manchuria?) during most of the Cold War. It's a very useful metal with very high melting temperature and tensile strength. And strangest of all, titanium dioxide exists almost everywhere in the ground, yet in the 1960's, the USA had to secretly purchase titanium from the USSR to build its super spyplane, the A-12 and SR-71 Blackbird.

So what's the deal with titanium? When was a TiO₂ refinement process invented that let us not be dependent on ilmenite (FeTiO₃)? When were major sources of titanium found and exploited outside of the Soviet Union and China?

Ultimately what I'm asking is: when and how did the West lose its dependency on the USSR for titanium?

EDIT: If I recall my research correctly, something changed in the early 1990's. I think some new refinement process. Does anyone know?

Answer 1

In the 1950s and 1960s titanium was a very exotic metal which few had the know how to make or use at the quantities and qualities required for a high tech military vehicle. Titanium is a notoriously difficult metal to work with. You can't refine it like iron ore, instead you get titanium carbide. Instead, you use a more complex process resulting in titanium sponge, basically refined titanium metal. It burns when exposed to oxygen or nitrogen at high temperature, so traditional welding doesn't work. Working it with traditional tools will quickly wear and break those tools.

It takes time to find the ore, build mines, mine the ore, transport it, learn how to refine it, refine it, produce metal, learn how to produce higher quality metal, etc... When a secret US military project in the 1960s (the A-12) suddenly needs large quantities which TiMet (the one large US producer at the time) could not meet, they have to look elsewhere. The Soviet Union was also investigating titanium for military use, they had a stockpile ready to be purchased, so Lockheed did.

"Our supplier, Titanium Metals Corporation, had only limited reserves of the precious alloy, so the CIA conducted a worldwide search and using third parties and dummy companies, managed to unobtrusively purchase the base metal from one of the world's leading exporters – the Soviet Union. The Russians never had an inkling of how they were actually contributing to the creation of the airplane being rushed into construction to spy on their homeland."

-- Rich, Ben R.; Janos, Leo (1994). Skunk Works : a personal memoir of my years at Lockheed (1st pbk. ed.). New York, NY: Back Bay Books. ISBN 9780316743006

Titanium came to be used more and more in the aerospace industry's quest for stronger and lighter aircraft which increased commercial demand. This increased commercial demand meant increased supply problems for the US military.

The 1983 document "Titanium: Past, Present, and Future. Report of the Panel on Assessement of Titanium Availabilty: Current and Future Needs of the Committee on Technical Aspects of Critical and Strategic Materials" by the National Materials Advisory Board of the US National Research Council lays out the problems the US was facing and their recommendations for fixing them.

1. US competitiveness in titanium sponge production.
2. Size and quality of the US stockpile.
3. Risky technological improvements.

Basically, US industry had trouble competing on the world market.

In chapter one they lay out their conclusions and recommendations. Here's the main points.

1. Our production facilities were great, but we were behind in making sponge to feed them.
2. There's no ore supply problem.
3. Titanium use is fluctuating like aluminum and magnesium did when they were introduced (the only new metals introduced in modern times), but faster, leading to problems for suppliers.
4. Hedge buying by the aircraft industry is causing artificial shortages.
5. It takes 3 to 5 years to get a sponge factory up and running.
6. There are numerous bottlenecks in US titanium production.

And so on. There's 19 points in all. They recommended these steps be taken to smooth demand and encourage the US titanium industry to upgrade.

1. The US purchase titanium via the national stockpile to smooth demand.
2. Give the titanium industry tax credits and incentives.
3. Eliminate bottlenecks.
4. Sponsor R&D to improve the workability of titanium.

Answer 2

Please clarify what you mean by dependence on USSR/Russian titanium. Do you mean:

• Titanium minerals which then need to be processed into metal and then into engineered items,
• Titanium metal which needs to be processed into engineering items, such as titanium sponge metal, or,
• Engineered items made of titanium such as aircraft ribs or landing gear?

If you mean titanium minerals (rutile and ilmenite), which are the source of 90 percent of the world's titanium, Russia is not in the top eight producers in the world. Data for 2011 reveal those countries to be Australia (19.4% of world production), South Africa (17.3%), Canada (10.4%), India (8.6%), Mozambique (7.7%), China (7.5%), Vietnam (7.3%) and Ukraine (5.3%).

If you mean engineered titanium items, Russia is still a major source of parts for aircraft. In 2013 Boeing bought aircraft ribs from Russia

Boeing buys so much titanium from Russia — the airplane maker plans $18 billion in purchases over the coming decades — that it now researches new alloys with the Russians.

“Russia is a critical partner for 787 titanium parts,”

Answer 3

when and how did the West lose its dependency on the USSR for Titanium?

In reality the West still seriously depends for Titanium on Russia.

The main reason is pure economics. Titanium has a very high cost price, so Boeing may take a bit, but you may be sure that GM would never want it (unless a cheap technological process of making Titanium is invented).

So to establish Titanium production you have not only to invest a vast sum of money in a hi-tech factory, but also to convince a few big companies, such as Boeing or Airbus, that they should break existing contracts and buy your stuff. How much profit do you expect to make from this?

Capitalism doesn't work like this, but Soviet Socialism did. So Soviet Union once made the largest Titanium production which still holds the biggest market share.

Answer 4

Looks like rutile became available in the seventies in decent quantities from Australia. But this seems a low-grade ore.

Norway started a major mine in 1960, which is still producing today. It probably didn't start at full production capacity.

But even earlier, in 1950 the Lac Tio mines in Canada opened.

You'd almost think the Americans imported the Titanium from Russia to make a point, not because they needed to.

Answer 5

The various claims you will read that the United States "depends" on Russia (or more properly the Ukraine) for titanium is pure nonsense, almost hysteria.

The rutile ores of titanium in the Ukraine are good quality and because labor is relatively cheap there it is possible to get this good quality ore relatively cheaply. Basically we saved a few pennies by buying Ukrainian ore. If the Ukrainian ore had not been available at a good price we could have gotten titanium ore from any number of other places.

The global metals market is just that: global. Metal comes from anywhere and everywhere, wherever it is cheapest.

The idea that a metal could only be found in one place or that some enemy has a "monopoly" is just ignorant nonsense. This same sort of hysterical nonsense fuels the china-has-a-monopoly-on-rare-earth-metals story.

People buy metal wherever it is cheapest, nobody has a monopoly.

This is the production of titanium in 1918:

These concentrates had 492.15 tons of pure titanium dioxide. Titanium dioxide is 60% titanium by weight. That means in 1918 the US produced out of this one small mine in Virginia 492.15 x 60% = 295 tons of titanium. It takes roughly 30 tons of titanium to make an SR-71. That means in one year alone (1918) the US produced enough titanium to make almost 10 Blackbirds, using 1918 technology. Obviously the methods to produce titanium in 1918 were far more primitive than what was available in 1964.

Answer 6

After the Sr-71 debacle, the USSR became more stingy with titanium exports, But still managed to sell it. The US got their hands from China. China, Japan and Kahzakstan are large titanium exporters (Sponge, raw titanium) the US is one of the largest producers of finished titanium products, however raw production is limited. ONLY one company (Timet) makes it. Attempts to revive the industry are current.