Critical minerals competition, explained
Lithium, cobalt and rare-earth supply chains have become a recurring subject of policy debate. A short explainer on where the concentration risk actually sits.
Discussions of critical-minerals security often focus on where lithium, cobalt and rare-earth elements are mined. Extraction is geographically spread across a reasonably wide set of countries; the sharper concentration risk sits downstream, in processing and refining capacity.
For several rare-earth elements, a small number of processing facilities handle the majority of global refining capacity, meaning a disruption at one site has an outsized effect on downstream manufacturing regardless of where the raw ore was mined.
Diversification strategies that focus only on new mining licences, without matching investment in processing capacity, are unlikely to materially change this concentration in the medium term.
This explainer sets out the processing-stage data behind that conclusion, drawn from public trade and production statistics, for readers who want the country-by-country breakdown.