Tellurium Metal Chain™
· ₹10,351.30/kg today
From mine to market: how Tellurium moves through the global economy.
Data year: 2025 · Chain data last reviewed: 9 September 2026 · not a live feed — see methodology.
How Tellurium Moves Through the Economy
Each stage below is a real, cited figure — click any stage for its full description and source.
Recovery (Copper-Refining Byproduct) Mining / Extraction
Tellurium is recovered almost entirely as a byproduct of copper refining, from the anode slimes left over after electrolytic copper refining.
High confidenceSource: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (via MetalsCost Metal Reserves) (2025)
Refining Processing / Refining
Byproduct tellurium is refined to high purity for use in thin-film solar cells and thermoelectric devices.
China accounts for an estimated 75% of world refined tellurium output. Concentration: High
Medium confidenceSource: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (Tellurium) — view (2024)
Solar Cells & Thermoelectrics Manufacturing / End Use
Refined tellurium is used mainly in cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film solar cells, plus thermoelectric devices, metallurgy additives and rubber.
Solar power cells (CdTe thin-film) account for an estimated 40% of tellurium demand; thermoelectric production (30%), metallurgy (15%) and rubber (5%) make up most of the remainder. Concentration: Moderate
Medium confidenceSource: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (Tellurium) — view (2024)
Supply Chain at a Glance
Solar's Alternative to Silicon
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film solar panels use tellurium as a core ingredient and offer a genuinely cost-competitive alternative to conventional silicon panels — a technology commercialised at real scale by manufacturers like First Solar in the United States.
A Byproduct of Copper, Not Its Own Mine
Virtually no mine digs for tellurium specifically — it's recovered from the anode slimes left over during copper refining, which means tellurium supply is tied to copper-refining volumes far more than to tellurium's own market price.
Rarer Than Gold in the Earth's Own Crust
Tellurium is genuinely one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust — rarer than gold by most geochemical estimates — which is the real reason, unlike almost every other metal on this site, essentially none of it is mined for its own sake. The entire market exists only because copper refiners happen to concentrate trace tellurium into anode slime as an incidental part of a completely different process.
Did You Know?
As India expands solar capacity toward its long-term renewable energy targets, tellurium demand for CdTe panels is one of the more direct ways a 'minor metal' most people have never heard of could see real, measurable demand growth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Country-level production data for Tellurium is not yet available on this page.
The Tellurium price in India today is ₹10,351.30 per kilogram as of October 16, 2026. See the live price and chart.
Metal Chain™ is an analytical framework developed by MetalsCost. Concentration figures and the current-bottleneck comparison are estimates derived from available public data and a documented methodology — they are not investment advice or a guaranteed forecast. See the methodology page for data sources and calculation details.
