Gallium is the archetypal byproduct metal: it has no primary mines, and supply cannot respond to price signals because production is dictated by Chinese aluminum smelter throughput. USGS MCS 2025 reports China at 99% of worldwide primary low-purity gallium production (750 of 760 tonnes in 2024). The refining geography is more diverse in principle — Canada, China, Japan, Slovakia, and the US all produce high-purity refined gallium — but USGS does not publish country-level refining shares, and the entire US refining industry is a single facility in New York.

China imposed gallium export licensing in August 2023 and banned gallium exports to the US entirely in December 2024. The bauxite feedstock constraint makes near-term substitution nearly impossible: bauxite averages ~50 ppm Ga, zinc ores up to 50 ppm, and <10% of this is potentially recoverable. An Australian company announced plans to open a US gallium recovery facility focused on electronic scrap recycling.