Mineral Security

🌱 Why are governments concerned with critical raw materials? Critical raw materials – such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium – are needed for the production of batteries and renewable energy technologies. Yet, the demand for critical minerals is expected to exceed the supply over the next decade. Acco

🌱 What restrictions are planned? The Chinese Ministry of Commerce recently announced its plans to put strict regulations on the export of two critical raw materials, namely gallium and germanium. As of 1 August 2023, companies must apply for permission from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and obta

🌱 What creates vulnerabilities in mineral supply chains? Mineral resources are a key source of income for some countries. Yet, “resource abundance does not always bring sustained economic growth and development”. The mining industry often only creates limited direct employment in the regions where

🌱 What is the Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance? On December 12th, 2022, the Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance was announced at COP15 in Montreal. The alliance aims “to drive the global uptake of environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive and responsible mining, processing and rec

🌱 What is causing the demand and prices to increase so rapidly? The growing scale and rate of the energy transition is causing the demand and prices for transition minerals and critical raw materials to increase swiftly. The exploration for minerals has increased to try to accommodate for this. Yet

🌱 What do the new rules entail? On 20 October 2023, China announced its plans to impose export controls on several graphite products. Graphite is a key component in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. As of 1 December 2023, China will be requiring “special export permits for three [different] grades o

🌱 Why will the EU and U.S. negotiate a CMA? The EU-U.S. intention to negotiate a CMA, as announced on 10 March 2023, follows from the U.S. enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022. Under the IRA, the U.S. introduced the “Clean Vehicle Credit”, which is a subsidy or tax credit p

🌱 Are the amounts of export restrictions on critical raw materials increasing? From 2009 to 2020, Argentina, China, India, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Vietnam implemented the most export restrictions on critical raw materials. Since the OECD began collecting data in 2009, there has been a five-fold inc

Both the EU and USA have plans for becoming self-sufficient in critical raw materials and batteries. 🌱 Why are there currently concerns around tech imports from China? China has recently been considering whether to put into place an export ban to strengthen its own solar technology manufacturing.

🌱 Are transition minerals readily available? With an increase in both the scale and rate of the energy transition, the demand for transition minerals is increasing rapidly. This also means that the exploration for minerals has increased, and that more minerals will need to be mined. There is curren