Skip to content
MineralLink

Other critical minerals

Barium (Ba)

Barite is used mainly as a weighting agent in oil and gas drilling fluids; also fillers and radiation shielding.

Open in the explorer
Atomic number
56
Period · group
6 · 2
Block
s-block

Why it is critical

Supply is concentrated in a few producing countries.

Who trades barite

$919 m of barite products crossed borders in 2024: ores and concentrates $919 m.

Largest exporters

  1. 1India$167 m18%
  2. 2China$150 m16%
  3. 3Morocco$140 m15%
  4. 4Laos$102 m11%
  5. 5Türkiye$66 m7%
  6. 6Netherlands$43 m5%
  7. 7Mexico$39 m4%
  8. 8Kazakhstan$29 m3%

Largest importers

  1. 1United States of America$235 m26%
  2. 2Saudi Arabia$121 m13%
  3. 3Argentina$49 m5%
  4. 4Italy$36 m4%
  5. 5Norway$27 m3%
  6. 6Türkiye$26 m3%
  7. 7United Arab Emirates$24 m3%
  8. 8Netherlands$24 m3%

Trade values in current US dollars (ores, concentrates, intermediates, chemicals and refined metal), not prices. Source: CEPII BACI (HS22), Etalab Open Licence 2.0 — details.