China locks in 99.6% of Brazil's precious metal ore exports

Almost everything flows one way

Brazil exported $112.9 M in precious metal ores and concentrates during the analyzed period. China received 99.6% of that total. The other six partners with any registered purchase split less than half a percentage point between them — effectively residual. This isn't rounding. It is what MDIC ComexStat reports.

An HHI of 0.991 leaves no ambiguity: the index approaches 1.0 as markets reach perfect concentration, and values above 0.25 are already flagged as highly concentrated by antitrust regulators globally. This reading exceeds that benchmark by orders of magnitude.

Why this channel exists

China is the world's largest gold refiner by installed capacity. Buying raw ore and precious metal concentrates from producers in Brazil, Australia, and southern Africa is the operational logic of large-scale Chinese refineries — they have the infrastructure, logistics reach, and processing margins that justify handling material from any origin efficiently.

From the Brazilian side, mines producing gold and silver in ore or concentrate form found in China a buyer with consistent appetite and an established procurement process. The commercial logic is solid — as long as both sides maintain the terms of exchange. There is no irrationality here: there is specialization.

The exposed vulnerability

The structural problem is that raw precious metal ore has a limited buyer market outside China. Refineries in Japan, Switzerland, and the U.S. exist but operate at smaller scale with more selective procurement structures. There is no evidence they would absorb the volumes currently flowing to China without a medium-term commercial development effort.

A bilateral disruption — sanctions, tariff disputes, or a shift in Chinese import policy — would force Brazilian exporters into either a revenue gap or a scramble for agreements with alternative refiners at likely less favorable terms. Brazil's Receita Federal tracks precious metal exports closely for compliance, so any rerouting would also require documentation adjustments and new licensed-exporter registrations, adding friction to an already difficult transition.

What happens if the partner shifts

Gold has one characteristic most commodities lack: global financial liquidity. In theory, ore could be sold to intermediaries that arbitrate with refineries. In practice, this raises transaction costs, compresses margins, and does not solve the refining capacity problem at any available alternative today.

There is also a geopolitical dimension worth naming. Precious metal ore trade operates within the broader contest over strategic supply chains between major powers. Export controls, entity list additions, or retaliatory tariffs could make Brazilian material a negotiating chip rather than a routine commercial transaction — adding a layer of uncertainty that purely commercial risk assessments miss.

Brazil's existing trade agreements — including Mercosul framework arrangements and those negotiated by Itamaraty — do not include specific access facilitations for precious metal ores in European or North American markets that would accelerate diversification. The path is long.