Brussels, 23 January 2025
A new JRC report explores the supply chain of titanium metal and how increasing circularity can cut imports.
Titanium metal is critical for the EU’s aerospace and defence industries and is used in several technologies key to the green and digital transitions, such as power generation, IT equipment (smartphones, tablets and laptops), or satellites. However, the EU currently faces significant challenges due to its heavy reliance on imports for titanium metal products.
This dependency exposes the EU to potential disruptions in its supply chain, particularly as the global landscape is dominated by rising protectionism, a limited number of suppliers, and global tensions such as Russia’s war on Ukraine.
A new JRC Science For Policy Report, coordinated by the JRC Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS), analyses the current landscape and suggests several policy options like strengthening international partnerships, boosting circularity, or bringing back part of the production to the EU. These measures could help secure a sustainable titanium ecosystem, enhance the EU’s open strategic autonomy, and even double employment in the internal titanium sector.
The strategic relevance of titanium
The EU is a key consumer of titanium, with the use of the metal only expected to grow in the upcoming years. However, Europe’s very limited capacity to produce titanium metal domestically makes it a net importer, meaning it imports more titanium than it exports.
Titanium products – ingots, bars, sheets, tube – represent the largest share of these imports, with an overall import-to-export ratio in volume terms of 6:1; the ratio for unwrought titanium – mostly sponge used to manufacture wrought products – is 10:1.
Two thirds of the EU’s titanium demand are currently tied to civil aerospace applications, which provide over 400,000 jobs and account for over 2% of EU GDP; while the rest is distributed among applications outside of the aviation and the space sectors like chemical technologies, automotive, robotics, defence, or additive manufacturing (i.e. 3D printing).
Geopolitical and supply chain challenges
The EU’s dependency on imports, coupled with geopolitical upheavals such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the expected rise in demand from the aerospace and defence industries, highlights the urgency to reduce external reliance. In addition to this, there are still a very limited number of titanium producers worldwide, which makes it harder for the EU to diversify suppliers.
The global titanium landscape is concentrated in a few key regions, including China, Japan, Russia and Kazakhstan. From these, Japan focuses mostly on the production of wrought titanium, while China lacks high-grade titanium to export.
And while the EU has successfully compensated for the loss of Russian and Ukrainian titanium supplies following Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, risks to the titanium supply chain persist and Russia continues to hold significant influence in the global aerospace industry as the world’s largest producer of aviation-grade titanium.
Closing the loop
According to the JRC experts, improving the circularity in titanium use could help solve the EU’s dependency on external countries. The circular economy also presents an opportunity to reduce titanium’s environmental impact and dependency on virgin material and could help decrease titanium imports.
A key step in closing the loop could be retaining aeronautical titanium scrap and recycling it instead of returning it to non-EU suppliers. Redirecting this scrap to European facilities while supporting domestic production infrastructures could double employment in the EU’s titanium sector while adding significant economic value.
Policy recommendations
In its new Science for Policy report, the JRC has come up with policy suggestions based on the EU’s current priorities on decarbonisation, derisking, reshoring and critical raw materials scarcity. These support recent and upcoming policies and guidelines, such as the Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act, the Net Zero Industry Act, the Green Deal Industrial Plan, the envisaged Clean Industrial Deal, the review of the WEEE Directive, or the Draghi Report.
These EU policy recommendations, aimed to secure a sustainable titanium ecosystem, include:
- Reshoring titanium processing: Establishing midstream production capabilities within the EU will reduce import dependency.
- Improving titanium recycling from decommissioned aircraft: Recycling titanium from decommissioned aircraft is feasible, but challenges related to profitability, regulations, and technical constraints have limited its large-scale implementation. Advancing eco-design practices and streamlining material certification processes could help overcome these barriers
- Strengthening international partnerships: Collaborations with titanium producers like Kazakhstan can diversify sourcing while encouraging sustainable practices in extraction and processing.
- Supporting Ukraine’s titanium industry: Post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Ukraine should integrate its titanium production into the EU value chain.
The JRC report provides a timely and comprehensive analysis of the titanium value chain, a strategic raw material, offering valuable insights for the implementation of the Critical Raw Materials Act and supporting evidence-based decision-making. In it, experts underscore the urgent need for the EU to strengthen its open strategic autonomy in the titanium supply chain.
By advancing circularity, reshoring production, fostering international partnerships, and supporting Ukraine’s titanium industry, the EU can address vulnerabilities in the metal’s supply chain while aligning with broader sustainability and industrial goals. Efforts such as the European Defence Agency’s (EDA) work on titanium circularity, exemplified by initiatives within the Incubation Forum for Circular Economy in European Defence (IF CEED), illustrate the practical steps that can be taken to achieve these objectives.
Read the report
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Titanium metal in the EU: Strategic relevance and circularity potential
Source – EU Joint Resource Centre