Last year, we noted that our coverage of the report coincided with Groundhog Day, February 2^nd.  And just like in the Bill Murray classic movie, in which the clock jumps back to the same day all over again every morning, the Critical Mineral movie appeared to bring us back to a situation of ongoing deep dependency on foreign sourced metals and minerals every year – at least in recent memory.

This year, we’re once again back with a look at the report, and, lo and behold, it’s Groundhog Day all over again – and by the looks of it not only with regards to the date, but also in terms of what we’re seeing, especially on one of the most telling charts of the report – the depiction of U.S. Net Import Reliance, or “Blue Wall of Dependency” as we have dubbed it based on the many blue bars showing our significant degree of import dependence.

While there are some changes from last year’s report, the number of metals and minerals for which we are 100% import dependent stayed the same at 15.  The the number of metals and minerals for which we are 50% or more import-dependent has dropped slightly, after having gone up over the year before — with the new report pegging it at 49 versus 51 in 2023 and 47 in 2022.

When cross-referencing the U.S. Net Import Reliance chart with the 2022 Final list of Critical Minerals, the United States was 100% net import reliant for 12, and an additional 29 critical mineral commodities (including 14 Rare Earth lanthanides, which are listed under rare earths) had a net import reliance greater than 50% of apparent consumption — a small drop by two over last year’s report.

Once more, ARPN  can’t help but observe that the trendlines represent a stark contrast to U.S. import reliance for metals and minerals in 1984, when we were 100% import reliant for just 11 mineral commodities.

A few changes for individual metals and minerals included in the report are notable and significant, particularly in the context of the accelerating global green energy transition:

For the Rare Earths, a key group of tech metals underpinning 21st Century technology and the accelerating green energy transition, our import reliance had dropped from 100% in the 2021 report to “greater than 90%” in the 2022 report.  Last year’s report had, this number back up to “greater than 95%” and it remains at the same level in this year’s report, with rare earth concentrate being extracted in the U.S. currently sent to China for separation.  Once again, a single link lacking in a supply chain continues U.S. dependency.

For Lithium, perhaps the most frequently cited battery tech mineral, and Cobalt, another one of Lithium’s “battery critical” peers, U.S. import reliance stayed the same at “greater than 25%” for lithium, while Cobalt’s number dropped from 76% to 69%.

For Graphite and Manganese, both battery criticals – the USGS report shows both still pegged at an unchanged 100% import reliance, unchanged from last year.

For Nickel, the final battery critical and a new element on the 2022 Critical Mineral List, import-reliance saw a small jump from 56% last year to 57% in this year’s report, after a more significant jump the year before (from 48% to 56%).

Import reliance for Platinum represents one of the biggest changes over last year’s report, which had the metal pegged at 66%. That number increased to 84 percent in the 2024 report.

Another change worth mentioning is the upward trajectory for Copper import reliance. In the 2010s, import reliance for Copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent, but in recent years, that number has gone up.  This year’s report has it pegged at 46%, up from 41% in the 2023 report.  This development that may be of particular relevance as in 2024, the U.S. Government Critical Minerals List is up for another update, on the 3-year timetable codified in federal law, and in spite of the metal’s inarguable growing importance in the context of decarbonization efforts and expert warnings that there may not be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades, the material has to date been left off the whole-of-government list. Congressional efforts to change this may have not succeeded in 2023, but the Department of Energy designated the material a critical material as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment, further raising the material’s clout.

As in previous iterations of the report, China continues to be the elephant in the data room. And against all pledges in recent years for the United States to reduce import reliance on supplies from China, the 2023 Mineral Commodity Summaries lists China 24 times as one of the major import sources of metals and minerals for which our net import reliance is 50% or greater (which is down by one over last year) – and for all the talk about decoupling supply chains from China and against the backdrop of the escalating trade and tech wars between Beijing and Washington (see our coverage here), this continues to be a concern.

Like last year’s report, this year’s Mineral Commodity Summaries report features an expanded chapter on developments in the critical minerals realm, identifying trend lines, and supply chain security and U.S. government critical minerals initiatives as well as critical mineral investments.

Last year we noted that “while the urgency of the need to secure critical mineral supply chains has registered with stakeholders over the past few years, USGS’s findings underscore once more that supply chains in the 21st Century are extremely complex and meaningful change takes time – and the developments of 2022 ranging from increased resource nationalism in the Southern hemisphere over war in Ukraine to rising geopolitical tensions have not made untangling supply chains any easier.”

Since then, the stakes have only gotten higher as geopolitical tensions continue to rise and U.S.-Chinese relations appear to sour, but ARPN’s basic assessment of the situation stays the same.

So, with the report revealing more of the same, and in true Groundhog Day fashion, we revisit last year’s post, in which we stated:

“In Bill Murray’s movie, it took the protagonist several years to realize how to change behavior to break the cycle.  We know by now that to break our cycle of resource dependence, it will take a comprehensive ‘all of the above’ approach to critical mineral resource policy – and stakeholders have come to realize this and have increasingly embraced the concept.  We continue to stand by what ARPN’s Dan McGroarty stated during a congressional hearing in 2019 – ‘we can’t admire the problem anymore. We don’t have the luxury of time.’

If we act swiftly and comprehensively, there may just be a chance that we will wake up twelve months from now not to another Groundhog Day, but to a 2024 Mineral Commodity Summaries that paints a picture of reduced resource dependence.”

2024’s report was not the one to paint that picture, but in light of recent policy developments (see our recap of 2023 here and refer to page 18 – 22 of the report), there is still hope we will be getting closer by the time next year’s Groundhog Day rolls around.  Meanwhile, with apologies to Punxsutawney Phil’s cheery forecast of an early spring, ARPN is projecting another long winter ahead of Critical Mineral foreign dependency.

The post Groundhog Day All Over Again in Spite of Rising Pressures? USGS Releases Annual Mineral Commodity Summaries Report appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

This week, a China Daily editorial zeroes in on provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress on December 22, which prevents the Pentagon from procuring batteries from Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd, BYD Co., and four other Chinese companies.

The China Daily was quick to dismiss the impact of the restrictive measure to “likely be limited given that it is still several years before the ban takes effect” and does not extend to commercial purchases, allowing, for instance, Ford Motor Co. to continue licensing technology from CATL for its electric vehicle batteries,” however, as Anna Ashraf points out in a piece for Benzinga Financial News and Data, “industries and lawmakers often use such rules as guidelines to determine trustworthy materials, products, and companies for their business operations.”

The China Daily piece goes on to accuse U.S. policy makers aiming to curb Chinese influence over U.S. supply chains of “hysteria” arguing that “rather than seeking win-win cooperation with China in the sector that will determine the future of the energy transition, some US politicians have sought to politicize the issue, by unveiling rules aimed at keeping Chinese components out of EVs sold in the US.”

Editors argue that recent high level government working group meetings indicate that “the trend of easing tensions between the two countries still continues, and will not be easily reversed by disruptive moves such as that to curb China’s EV industry boom,” however, over the course of the last few days, the rhetoric of China’s government officials in Beijing and emissaries abroad has a taken a sharper edge, as evidenced most recently by remarks by China’s ambassador to the Netherlands in response to U.S. chip-equipment curbs, telling journalists in an interview that “if the Americans treat us in a hegemonic manner, we will of course respond.”

These remarks follow on the heels of Chinese Ministry of Commerce publicly alleging that the U.S. is weaponizing export controls and using them as a tool earlier this month in reference to questions about Dutch chipmaker ASML, which, per Dutch government directive, has stopped its exports of certain chip components to China, supposedly due to U.S. pressure.

In light of the stakes and the extent of Chinese control over critical mineral supplies, U.S. policy makers’ efforts to bolster domestic supply chains hardly amount to “hysteria,” but rather a growing awareness and willingness to finally tackle an acute challenge, particularly as relations between the Washington and Beijing, in spite of high-level diplomacy and working group meetings, continue to sour.

The U.S. has taken a few steps to reduce its critical mineral supply chain vulnerabilities in recent weeks. The question is, how will China respond.

The post Tit for Tat – Escalation in Tech Wars Continues as China Alleges “Hysteria” and “Hegemonic Manner” on the Part of U.S. appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

As ARPN noted in 2023, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is preparing to invest billions of dollars into the mining sector to harness the potential of more than $1.3 trillion worth of metals and minerals the Saudi government claims are buried in the kingdom in the context of his Grand Vision 2030 plan to transform the Saudi economy.  If successful, he would make mining the so-called “third pillar” of the economy next to oil and gas.

More specifically, the kingdom is looking to secure access to materials ranging from the battery criticals to other 21^stcentury tech metals which are to be processed by new refineries and smelters to feed a “wider industrial network” across the country.

But what does Saudi Arabia’s “plunge into the world of mining” mean for the rest of the world, and especially the United States and its allies?

Thomas Biesheuvel, writing for Bloomberg’s Energy Daily, believes that the emergence of Saudi Arabia will make it “even harder for the U.S., Europe and Japan to secure the battery minerals they want.”

Says Biesheuvel:

“Saudia Arabia crashed into the world mining scene in the middle of last year with a $2.6 billion deal to buy 10% of Vale SA’s base metal unit, beating off competition from Qatar and Japan in the process.

It’s looking to buy more stakes in foreign mining operations through Manara Minerals Investment Co., a vehicle established by the kingdom’s powerful sovereign wealth fund and Saudi Arabian Mining Co. In doing so, it wants to secure metal offtake in return.”

Biesheuvel argues the model is similar to one long deployed by Japan’s commodity trading houses, but Saudi Arabia’s Mantra is state backed, and can “deploy capital with long-term strategic goals in mind.”

He concludes:

“That poses a challenge for countries such as the US, which is rushing to catch up. There have been suggestions the nation could piggyback off Saudi ambitions to secure its own supplies — essentially subcontracting out the heavy lifting.  But Saudi Arabia’s focus is to develop its own industry, and it’s becoming clearer that it will work with any country that helps achieve those goals.”

Reports in the fall of 2023 indicated that auctions for exploration licenses in the kingdom had only attracted smaller players thus far, but ARPN posited at the time that the crown prince’s willingness to take commercial risks might draw in the big players before long.  The buzz around this month’s Future Minerals Forum clearly points in this direction.

Saudi Arabia has clearly taken note that we are leaving the Petro Age, and is taking steps to position itself in a post-Petro Tech Metals Age.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has taken several positive steps to strengthen domestic supply chains, but, with the U.S.-Chinese trade war showing signs of intensifying and other players — like Saudi Arabia — making an emphatic entrance onto the world stage of the resource wars, it is time to cast aside simplistic “not in my backyard,” or “keep it all in the ground” mantras that still appear to hamper U.S. resolve, and to push forward with a comprehensive all-of-the-above critical mineral resource strategy.

The post Saudi Arabia Makes Emphatic Entrance onto Critical Minerals Stage — With Implications for U.S. and Allies appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

ARPN has been keeping a keen eye on U.S.-China relations, but if you needed a visual reminder on why it matters beyond economic and military might, Visual Capitalist is here to help and has released another great chart depicting China’s dominance of critical mineral supply chains.

Using USGS data, the expert chart makers have visualized China’s share of U.S. imports for ten critical minerals:

Sometimes a picture says more than a thousand words, but if you need more context, Visual Capitalist also provides some additional context here, and points to USGS estimates that if China were to cut off 40-50% of rare earth oxide production, it could disrupt global supply to the point where it would impact U.S. defense systems advanced component suppliers.

Followers of ARPN are aware of the increasing weaponization of trade in the context of U.S.-Chinese relations, and in particular the role of export controls, such as the ones imposed by China on germanium and gallium, as well as graphite and rare earths.

As such, it comes as no surprise that U.S. policy stakeholders are taking a firmer stance on policies relating to China, particularly in an election year. See our post on the U.S. House vote to overturn the waiver of “Buy America” requirements for taxpayer-funded EV charging stations here. 

However, these waiver requirements are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Mandates to source domestically or from allies can only work if there is a framework conducive to harnessing these resources, so this election cycle and beyond candidates and other stakeholders should prioritize strengthening domestic critical mineral supply chains where possible, and friend shoring, where necessary.

As geopolitical flashpoints continue to increase, so do the stakes.

The post A Visual Reminder Why China Matters in the Context of U.S. Critical Mineral Resource Policy appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

But if the summit meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in November of last year was to be “the culmination of a year-long process that calmed the waters,” recent developments underscore the frailty of relations and the potential for conflict.

A recent case in point, as followers of ARPN may recall, was U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo’sspeech and subsequent comments at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California late last year in which the Secretary did not mince words, stating: “(…) make no mistake about it, China’s not our friend, and we need to be eyes wide open about the extent of that threat. I am ready to win, and I’m ready to do that with all of you, but it’s time to open our aperture and challenge the way we’ve done business in every way if we’re going to meet the threat China poses.”

When asked if there were other U.S. origin products or types of technologies that the U.S. Government was “looking at in a similar fashion right now” – i.e. would consider imposing export controls on, she said:

“Absolutely, in biotechnology, AI models, AI products, cloud computing, supercomputing. So short answer is yes.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives’ vote last week voted to strike down President Biden’s waiver of “Buy America” requirements for taxpayer-funded electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, indicates that Congress, too, may be willing to take a more confrontational stance towards China only days into the new year.

The waiver had watered down some more stringent rules proposed the Department of Transportation in August of 2022, most notably requirement to manufacture chargers with no less than 25% American-made components by cost.

The U.S. Senate voted to pass the resolution reversing the waiver in late 2023, with U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) leading the charge arguing that “if we’re going to spend $5 billion of taxpayer money to build electric vehicle charging stations for the United States, it should be made by Americans in America using American products.”

While the president is expected to veto the resolution, its passage has several implications.

On the diplomacy level, it underscores the volatility of U.S.-Chinese relations and comes against the backdrop of sharpened rhetoric by China alleging that the U.S. is weaponizing export controls and using them as a tool, as evidenced by recent comments by Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce spokesperson in reference to a question about Dutch chipmaker ASML, which per Dutch government directive has stopped exporting certain chip components to China, allegedly due to U.S. pressure.

And on the resource policy level, it underscores the urgency for U.S. stakeholders to strengthen domestic critical mineral supply chains and diversify sources away from China as Congress takes a harder line on Beijing, particularly with election politics taking center stage and candidates and party committees from both major political parties attempting to tie opponents to China as views of Beijing continue to deteriorate amongst the electorate.

The post As Tech Wars Between U.S. and China Deepen, U.S. House Votes to Overturn Waiver of “Buy America” Requirements for Taxpayer-Funded EV Charging Stations appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

As Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Laura D. Taylor-Kale told the media during the official press briefing on Nov. 11, 2024:

“this is the first time that we’ve really put pen to paper to map out a strategy and a vision to create a modernized, resilient, innovative defense industrial ecosystem.”

Citing specific threats to U.S. national security – adversaries building up their military power to “levels not seen since World War II”, China’s increasingly aggressive use of “gray zone tactics across all elements of national power,” Russian aggression and Israel’s “existential fight against Hamas” – Dr. Taylor-Kale says the NDIS “seeks to answer the question, ‘How do we prioritize and optimize defense needs in a competitive environment undergirded by geopolitical, economic and technological challenges?’”

According to Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Halimah Najieb-Locke, “the NDIS is grounded in the National Defense Strategy, with a special emphasis on integrated deterrence and building that resilient ecosystem” and reflects “the Biden-Harris administration’s focus on securing and reinvigorating our defense supply chains by incorporating the presidential direction and guidance from Executive Order 14017 on America’s Supply Chains.”

The Strategy outlines four priorities which ARPN will detail further in a separate post:

1. Resilient supply chains 
2. Workforce readiness 
3. Flexible acquisition 
4. Economic deterrence 

Of particular interest to followers of ARPN is Dr. Taylor-Kale’s highlighting of the importance to streamline and make more efficient use of investment tools available to the U.S. government under the Defense Production Act and the Industrial Base Analysis Sustainment Program to strengthen U.S. domestic critical mineral supply chains, tools which Dr. Taylor-Kale admits have been “underutilized” to date.

Says Dr. Taylor-Kale:

“(…) as we have our visibility and mapping efforts ongoing, we’re able to work with the services and marshal the entire defense budget where possible, where we have programs of record to say, how are we overcoming this? How are we using acquisition strategies that actually targetareas of concern that industry has? And how are we things such as multiyear procurements, advance procurements, purchase commitments?

There are a number of tools and flexible acquisition strategies that we can employ to really drive investment into this area in a way that before now has been disparate, and so you can’t feel the impact. So we’re answering the industry’s call for consistent demand signal by organizing ourselves and targeting our efforts.

She adds:

“As much as we have used and really expanded investments using the Defense Production Act over the last few years, we’ve really only used a quarter of the authorities, really looking at the authorities.

So our goal with the implementation plan, particularly the public-facing one, will really outline some of the key areas that are important and that we, within A&S, within Industrial Base Policy, have control over, looking at, for instance, critical minerals and strategic materials, where we’ve already done a number of key investments. Since the beginning of the administration, we’ve done almost $1 billion just in critical minerals and strategic materials.

And we will obviously, just as the DASD noted, will continue working in these areas because of its importance for supply chain resilience and some of the chokepoints (…).”

A detailed implementation plan will be developed in the coming weeks, with hopes of publishing an unclassified version in February and a more detailed classified version sometime in March.

The full press briefing transcript can be accessed here, while the full text of the strategy and NDIS Fact Sheet sheet can be downloaded here.

The post Hot-Off-The-Press Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) Brings Defense Production Act Back into Focus for Critical Mineral Supply Chain Security appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Somewhat lost in the shuffle of work parties, family gatherings and holiday shopping was the Chinese government’s announcement on December 21 that it would ban the export of technology to make rare earth magnets, adding to a ban already in place on extraction and separation technologies for REEs.

In what Reuters calls an “escalating battle with the West over control of critical minerals,” Beijing significantly tightened rules guiding exports of several metals in 2023. (see ARPN’s reprise post of 2023’s main events in the critical minerals realm for more on China’s tightening of the export control ratchet).

Don Swartz, CEO of American Rare Earths, a company currently developing a REE mine and processing facility in Wyoming, sees China’s move, which follows a November 2023 directive from the Chinese government to REE exporters to report transaction details, as a clear sign that “China is driven to maintain its market dominance,” with Swartz adding that “[t]his is now a race.”

Meanwhile, for all the tit for tat in the grander scheme of the Tech Wars and a flurry of activity on the resource policy front, the West has struggled to effectively decouple its critical mineral supply chains from China.

In the case of rare earths, China, which still accounts for nearly 90% of global refined output, controls the refinement process, and area that has Western REE companies struggling because of “technical complexities and pollution concerns” in the solvent extraction process, as Reuters points out.

Nonetheless, experts believe the latest announcement should be “a clarion call that dependence on China in any part of the value chain is not sustainable.” 

The West may have kicked off the new year already, but Chinese New Year is still upon us. 2023, the Lunar Year of the Rabbit, was supposed to bring us “relaxation, fluidity, quietness and contemplation.”  What we got, was an escalation of the Tech Wars, more resource nationalism and more geopolitical instability.  At the same time, these developments also served as catalysts kicking efforts to strengthen domestic supply chains into high gear.

With 2024 moving us into the Lunar Year of the Dragon, the overall energy of which is said to be “vital and competitive,” we may be in for a tumultuous ride.

Read ARPN’s Year in Review – A Look at 2023 Through the Prism of Critical Mineral Resource Policy here. 

The post New Year, New Round of Tech Wars Escalation? appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

– A Look at 2023
Through the Prism of Critical Mineral Resource Policy - 

In the waning days of December 2022, ARPN and others were gearing up for a watershed year in the critical minerals realm – a year which could be a “breaking point if there is to be an EV revolution/transformation,” and one that would give us a glimpse into the new world order in the Post Petro Age in which the sands of geopolitics have shifted.

We set out to track the following themes, all of which we found to be intertwined:

• A focus on the Super Criticals (see our Year in Review post for more info);
• the growing importance of geopolitics, with China taking center stage and alliances and partnerships continuing to be forged to reduce reliance on Beijing;
• the acceleration of the green energy transition which will require vast amounts of critical minerals;
• as well as industry’s efforts to sustainably green our future by harnessing the materials science revolution.

As we close out 2023 with ARPN’s annual attempt to take stock of what has happened on the critical mineral resources front in the past 12 months — to assess where we are, and, filled with hope for a New Year, where we are headed – we believe we picked the right themes.

2023 – Enter the Post-Petro Tech Age?

Early 2023

Geopolitics certainly took center stage on the critical minerals front with the Russia/Ukraine war continuing to place a strain on global supply chains and resource nationalism gaining a bigger foothold in particularly the Southern hemisphere.

As Peter Schechter and Juan Cortiñas had outlined in a February 2022 piece for Marsh McLennan’s Brink News ARPN featured at the time, the shunning of laissez-faire economics, particularly in Latin America, is not new. “What’s different this time,” they say, “is that these new interventionist policies are not only focused on the traditional energy sector. Instead, the region’s attention is turning to increasingly valuable minerals that are key to the new green economy quickly gaining momentum across the world.”  

Resource Nationalism 

In early 2023, we saw this trend play out in Chile, where President Gabriel Boric announced his plan to nationalize the country’s lithium industry to boost the Latin American nation’s industrial base and protect the environment.  While his plan fell short of full nationalization, observers called Boric’s announcement a “shock move”  – but it was one that tied into an overall trend in the region:

Chile’s move came on the heels of a comprehensive lithium nationalization plan enacted by Mexico which culminated in President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador signing a decree handing over responsibility for lithium reserves to the country’s energy ministry in February of this year.

Bolivia’s ruling socialists have also favored state control over the nation’s vast untapped mineral resources but are relying on Chinese partners to harness them.

Meanwhile, some speculated at the time that had it not been for his ouster, Peru’s President Pedro Castillo, who won a narrow victory in 2021 and had initially pledged to nationalize much of the country’s mining sector, might have pursued an approach similar to Boric’s in Chile.

The moves tied into a bigger trend, as indicated by prior similar developments in Indonesia, Myanmar and Zimbabwe.

 Tech War Theaters – Semiconductors and Critical Minerals 

Meanwhile, the Tech Wars between China and the West continued to intensify, and Western nations began taking steps to counter Chinese dominance in the critical minerals realm.

A key theater of the Tech Wars had emerged: Semiconductors, which have become indispensable components for a broad range of electronic devices. Semiconductors have been dubbed the “DNA of technology” which has “transformed essentially all segments of the economy” and are critical to national security where they enable the “development and fielding of advanced weapons systems and control toe operation of the nation’s critical infrastructure,” as the Department of Commerce-led chapter in the Biden Administration’s 100 Day Supply Chain Review report outlines.

While the U.S. took steps to impose new export controls to China’s access to advanced computing chips, its ability to develop and maintain super computers and manufacture semiconductors in 2022, Washington’s allies in Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia also took steps to reduce Chinese influence in their critical mineral industries. The governments of the Netherlands and Japan announced their intention to emulate the U.S. export controls in March.

A late 2022 proposal to bolster the Investment Canada Act (ICA) to empower government ministers to block or unwind critical mineral investments if these are considered as a threat to national security, considered a defensive measure against China which has invested $7 billion in Canada’s base metals sector in the past two decades, was expected to be finalized in the spring.

Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers in early 2022 blocked a request by a Chinese company to boost its investment in Australian REE company Northern Minerals via a prevention order, the first move of this kind since the Treasurer had expressed concerns over the “concentrated nature of the China-dominated critical minerals supply chain” elevated by the Russia-Ukraine war, and a move that some considered a “sign of what’s to come.”

West Bolsters Domestic Supply Chains 

While these steps were taken to reduce Chinese influence over domestic industries, the West also stepped up efforts to strengthen its own critical mineral policies and sectors.

The European Union released its long-awaited action plan to “ensure the EU’s access to a secure, diversified, affordable and sustainable supply of critical raw materials” on March 16. The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA)  includes a comprehensive set of actions aimed at shoring up European critical mineral supply chains by streamlining the permitting process for raw materials projects and allowing for selected “Strategic Projects” to benefit from support for access to financing and shorter permitting timelines (24 months for extraction permits and 12 months for processing and recycling permits).  The Act – which was finalized later in the year, also requires EU member states to develop national programs for resource exploration.

Australia also forged ahead with its push to strengthen critical mineral supply chains for its own industries and for the benefit of its partners with the federal government in Canberra releasing guidelines for “new grants to help develop Australia’s critical minerals sector, support downstream processing, create jobs across regional Australia and support global efforts to achieve net-zero” in early 2023.

The Canadian government, which had launched the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy in December of 2022 backed by up to $3.8 billion in funding, announced details on the implementation and a first round of funding for new critical minerals programs and initiatives.

The Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), an initiative to bolster critical mineral supply chains while ensuring that “critical minerals are produced, processed and recycled in a manner that supports the ability of countries to realize the full economic development benefit of their geological endowments”  took its collaboration to the next level by formalizing and agreeing on guiding principles for how the MSP will develop projects around the world with local value-add, sustainability, and high environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards front and center. Meetings were followed by bilateral trade agreements as well as U.S.-EU discussions to launch a “critical minerals club.”

And stateside, U.S. President Joe Biden once more invoked Title III of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to strengthen critical mineral supply chains – and in doing so, effectively created a new category of Critical Materials – which ARPN has dubbed the Defense Criticals (see our post here). His February 27, 2023 Presidential Determination was followed by another DPA Presidential Determination (2023-5), designating airbreathing engines, advanced avionics navigation and guidance systems, and hypersonic systems and their “constituent materials” as priority DPA materials.

Mid 2023

We posited in early 2023, that against the backdrop of surging demand and geopolitical volatility, we could expect to see more active government involvement in the critical minerals sector – and the coming months certainly delivered.

China Tightens Export Ratches as West Gets Reality Check on Decoupling

In July, China upped the ante in the Tech Wars by placing export restrictions on gallium and germanium – key components of semiconductor, defense and solar technologies. Beijing’s move was considered a “show of force ahead of economic talks between two rivals that increasingly set trade rules to achieve technological dominance,” according to the Wall Street Journal. As Alastair Neill, board member of the Critical Minerals Institute, told the Wall Street Journal: “If you don’t send high-end chips to China, China will respond by not sending you the high-performance elements you need for those chips.” 

While some chipmakers downplayed fears of shortages, former Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Wei Jianguo’s comments to the China Daily newspaper “that countries should brace for more should they continue to pressure China, describing the controls as a ‘well-thought-out heavy punch’ and ‘just a start,’”  prompted fears that more export curbs on critical materials, including on rare earths could be on the menu, and analysts called for  big investments on the part of the United States and its partners to reduce their reliance on China.

Later that month, China announced a new set of export controls — this one on certain drones and drone-related equipment — to “safeguard national security interests,” only to follow it up with restrictions on graphite later in October. The decision to require export permits for certain graphite products was seen by analysts as a play “to control supplies of critical minerals in response to challenges over its global manufacturing dominance.”

China’s moves also underscored the massive challenge of decoupling for Western nations.  In the case of graphite, which is the largest component by volume and mass in EV batteries and has been deemed the “unsung player” in the battery supply chain, China “is on track to retain over 85% of the global anode market share by the end of the decade,” according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

While momentum to decouple was continuing to build, a new report by the consultancy Rhodium Group and the German Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) pointed to the real-world challenges of decoupling from China from a European perspective:

European national governments and the EU may have worked to devise policies to strengthen domestic and regional critical mineral supply chains, but Chinese companies continued to invest in the region: Overall, Chinese foreign direct investment in the EU and the UK dropped, but, as Mary Hui writes for Quartz, “for the first time since 2008, the value of Chinese greenfield investments have exceeded that of M&A flows,” and was “mainly driven by several large-scale initiatives by Chinese battery giants to build factories in Germany, Hungary, the UK, and France.”

As the Rhodium report determined, “Europe has become a key part of China’s global electric vehicle expansions,” adding that “[b]attery investments are now the mainstay of Chinese investment in Europe.” The emerging conundrum is not lost on EU policy makers, who resolved to formally “recalibrate” the EU’s China policy, with an emphasis on “de-risking” by screening investments more closely and resorting to more robust export controls.

The West’s resolve to break China’s dominance may be building, but as Christina Lu wrote for Foreign Policy:

“(…) there are more questions than answers about how these efforts will pan out. As lawmakers continue to hammer out new agreements behind closed doors, it remains unclear how they align with global trading rules and what this momentum means for countries that lack free trade agreements with the United States. Engineering supply chains isn’t as simple as finding new mines, either; it involves an entire ecosystem of processing, refining, and manufacturing capabilities.”

The Rise of Geopolitical Swing States

As the West continued to assess its options against the backdrop of an increasingly assertive China leveraging its advantage in the Tech Wars, a new class of states have entered the spotlight in the context of the global geopolitical realignment – the “geopolitical swing states,” as Goldman Sachs’s Jared Cohen suggested this June, and their role could grow exponentially in the coming years.

Cohen defines a geopolitical swing state as “critical to the world economy and balance of power” but without “the capacity by themselves to drive the global agenda, at least for now.” He adds that “as long as the tensions between the U.S. and China continue to get worse, they will have outsized abilities to navigate geopolitical competition and take advantage of and influence it.” 

According to Cohen, there are four – often overlapping — categories of geopolitical swing states:

• Countries with a competitive advantage in a critical aspect of global supply chains;
• Countries with a unique ability to make themselves attractive for nearshoring, offshoring, or friend-shoring;
• Countries with a disproportionate amount of capital and willingness to deploy it around the world in pursuit of strategic objectives; and
• Countries with developed economies and leaders who have global visions that they pursue within certain constraints.

As Cohen concluded, “[t]he rise of geopolitical swing states may balance the great powers and help stabilize the global order. Their interest-based decision-making could be a source of consistency in uncertain times. Or their newfound prominence may increase global instability by putting more actors and variables in play. But even if today’s world is not yet multipolar, a rising group of countries recognize that they can determine the course of world events. Those geopolitical swing states are aware that their power may be unsustainable, or event fleeting and they are determined to take advantage of the current window of opportunity.”

While the rise of the geopolitical swing states has business implications for multinational businesses and investors, these trendlines are have real-world implications for U.S. stakeholders from a policy perspective, and, in the critical mineral resource realm, underscore the importance of a comprehensive all-of-the-above approach to securing critical mineral resource supply chains.

Fall/Winter 2023 

Critical Mineral Focus Grows, New Players Emerge

Meanwhile, real world challenges associated with securing supplies for the metals and minerals underpinning 21st Century technology prompted more countries to emphasize supply chain security and define their own sets of metals and minerals critical to their own domestic industries.

Perhaps most consequential in light of the fact that it has overtaken China as the most populous country in the world this year, may be India’s push onto the global critical minerals stage.  Following the release of a comprehensive Critical Minerals List, consisting of 30 metals and minerals deemed critical for India’s ambition for cleaner technologies in electronics, telecommunications, transport and defense, in the summer, along with a pledge to encourage public and private investment in exploration, mining and processing to secure the country’s critical mineral supply chains, India announced its consideration of an export ban on four key metals – lithium, beryllium, niobium and tantalum – in a move to ensure the country’s self-sufficiency in crucial minerals for India’s national security and technological advancements. In late November, the Indian government announced its first ever auction of critical mineral leases for commercial mining by the private sector.

But another player has arrived – perhaps in another indication that we have indeed entered the Post-Petro Tech Metals Age: Saudi Arabia.

As part of his Grand Vision 2030 plan to transform the Saudi economy, the oil giant’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is preparing to invest billions of dollars into the mining sector to harness the potential of more than $1.3 trillion worth of metals and minerals the Saudi government claims are buried in the kingdom, and effectively make mining the so-called “third pillar” of the economy next to oil and gas. Rumors of a deal with Tesla have been swirling, even though they have been denied by Elon Musk himself.

Analysts say that while the crown prince’s plans are met with plenty of skepticism, even if only partially successful, implications of Saudi Arabia turning into a metals hub could have far-reaching implications not just for metals mining, but geopolitics and trade, especially if the other component of the crown prince’s plan to buy up resources from elsewhere to be refined and processed at new facilities in Saudi Arabia.

As Bloomberg reports, the kingdom’s long game is to position itself as an alternative supplier to China for the metals and minerals underpinning the green energy shift and 21st Century technologies.  The news outlet cites Khalid Al Mudaifer, vice minister of mining affairs, who said in an interview that “Saudi Arabia needs more than one engine to achieve its vision,” and that to transform itself into an economic and industrial powerhouse, the kingdom needs minerals.

Global Tensions Mount – Gaza and Tech War Confrontation

If the watershed moment for geopolitics in 2022 was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this year’s defining moment was probably the Hamas-led incursion from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of neighboring Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, which initiated the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. Throwing a wrench into arguably efforts to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East, the conflict threatens domestic stability in many states in the region and has exposed the deep-rooted nature of obstacles to normalization.

While China has claimed neutrality and has called on both sides to exercise restraint, China, while criticizing Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza in response to the incursion, but never officially condemned the initial attack started by Hamas. Experts believe that the Israel-Hamas war is viewed in Beijing as a convenient opportunity to gain ground against the United States in the battle for influence in the Arab world, as tensions between China and the West, and specifically the U.S. continue to mount. 

As Hot Wars Rage, All Arrows Point to Escalation of Tech War 

 With hot wars raging in Central Europe and the Middle East, the question is, do we have bandwidth to focus on a war that’s metaphorical – for now, at least:  The Tech War pitting China versus the U.S.?

While the recent meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco last month was seen by some as a step towards alleviating tension between the two global powers, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo’s latest speech and subsequent comments at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California left no doubt that, at least on the trade front, all arrows very much point to confrontation.

The Secretary did not mince words, stating: “(…) make no mistake about it, China’s not our friend, and we need to be eyes wide open about the extent of that threat. I am ready to win, and I’m ready to do that with all of you, but it’s time to open our aperture and challenge the way we’ve done business in every way if we’re going to meet the threat China poses.”

When asked if there were other U.S. origin products or types of technologies that the U.S. Government was “looking at in a similar fashion right now” – i.e. would consider imposing export controls on, she said:

“Absolutely, in biotechnology, AI models, AI products, cloud computing, supercomputing. So short answer is yes.”

Unsurprisingly, China has already voiced criticism of Raimondo’s comments with officials lamenting the “Cold War mentality” on the part of the U.S. which showed its “desire for hegemony.”

Diplomatic efforts to improve ties between the countries in the wake of Raimondo’s remarks may continue but to the keen observer it appears all but certain at this point that we’ll be seeing a further escalation of the Tech Wars in the coming months, with the export control ratchet playing a central role.

The question is, which critical mineral will find itself in the crosshairs this time. 

Turning the Same Stone Twice

With more confrontation on the horizon, there are some silver linings, thankfully.  Not only are domestic policy stakeholders more attuned to the critical minerals challenge and are working on policy solutions including permitting reform, the mining industry itself has been stepping up its game.

In their quest to secure critical mineral supply chains against the backdrop of surging demand and rising geopolitical pressures, stakeholders are leaving no stone unturned – quite literally — and have in fact begun turning the same stone twice, harnessing the materials science revolution to unlock minerals that were previously bound up, and extracting minerals from unconventional sources such as rock piles and tailings.

In 2023, ARPN featured several of these initiatives:

• The “Atlas of Australian Mine Waste”, an Australian government mapping project of sites containing mine waste with reprocessing potential,
• The USGS’s solicitation for proposals for FY2023 grants to collect data on mine waste using funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act in the context of the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI), in the context of which more than $5.8 million will go towards mapping critical-mineral resources in Alaska in partnership with the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys. Minerals included in the context of USGS and the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Survey research projects Alaska are: Arsenic, antimony, bismuth, cobalt, graphite, indium, platinum group metals, rare earth elements, tantalum, tellurium and tin.
• Australia-based New Century Resources current operation of the largest tailings retreatment operation at its zinc tailings retreatment operation in Queensland,
• A Reuters lists of six major projects outside of China aimed at extracting the critical minerals from waste or byproducts, including Iluka Resources Ltd’s and VHM Ltd’s operations in Australia, Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd’s endeavor in northeast South Africa, Swedish state-owned LKAB’s plans to extract REEs from two existing mines, and two U.S. operations:

• Phoenix Tailings, a privately held U.S. company plans to launch operations using waste materials from a former iron ore mine in New York using its own processing technology.

• U.S. Energy Fuels, originally focused on uranium production, started acquiring monazite, a byproduct of mineral sands, to extract REEs with plans to open its own separation plant by 2024.

• Global miner Rio Tinto’s production of tellurium at its Kennecott copper operation in Utah, where roughly 20 tons of the material are generated from by-product streams generated during the copper refining process; and the company’s partnership with CR Minerals Co. LLC to extract a material called pozzolans from Rio Tinto’s Boron California operations, which can be substituted for or combined with cement to decarbonization construction materials. Meanwhile, in Canada, the miner is producing scandium from titanium waste, becoming the first North American producer of scandium in the process.
• The October 2023 Fortune Minerals/Rio Tinto announcement of a collaboration to develop technology to improve the recovery of cobalt and bismuth from co-product streams of minerals recovered at Rio Tinto’s Kennecott smelter in Utah which will be processed at Fortune Minerals’s smelter operations.

As the materials science revolution marches on and continues to unlock new technologies allowing for the safe and commercially viable recovery of mine waste tailings, harnessing this – to date largely untapped — potential could play a significant role in a comprehensive “all-of-the-above” approach to bolstering critical mineral supply chains.

U.S. Supply Chain Initiative, Plan to Release National Defense Industrial Strategy

On the policy front, the Biden Administration recently announced new steps to bolster supply chains for U.S. domestic industries. One highly anticipated component with implications for the critical minerals sector is the Department of Defense’s release of a first ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), which, according to the White House, “will guide engagement, policy development, and investment in the defense industrial base over the next three to five years.”

2023 – Metals in Focus

From Battery Criticals to Defense Criticals, and Copper’s Rising Star

In keeping with last year’s trend lines, ARPN-dubbed Battery Criticals – Lithium, Cobalt, Graphite, Nickel and Manganese – continued to dominate the critical minerals discourse (along with the Rare Earths) against the backdrop of surging needs of the green energy transition.

See our coverage of these materials here.

As previously outlined, however, President Biden’s invocation of Title III of the DPA effectively created a new category of Critical Materials – which ARPN has dubbed the Defense Criticals – a whopping list of 35:

See our post with more context here.  

Meanwhile, one mainstay metal’s star has continued to rise in 2023 – Copper. 

Copper prices may have dropped, however demand for the metal, which is not only a key mainstay metal, but also an indispensable component in green energy technology, is expected to increase drastically to keep pace with the material requirements of the global push towards net zero carbon emissions.

According to the Financial Times, its growing application in this field will result “in it being dubbed the ‘metal of electrification’, with forecasts that it will double to a 50mn tonne market by 2035 compared with 2021 levels, according to S&P Global, which predicts a ‘chronic gap’ between supply and demand.”

While U.S. import reliance for copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent in the 2010s, that number has gone up to more than 40 percent in the 2020s, according to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. 

Miners are pointing out that a confluence of complex permitting timelines, rising inflation and the fact that the commodity is “harder to find in high quantities in the ground” may have led to a situation “where it’s likely there won’t be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades.”

While Copper is a key component of technology in the context of decarbonization efforts, the material was left off the overall U.S. government’s critical minerals list. Congressional efforts to change this may have not succeeded in 2023, but the Department of Energy designated the material a critical material as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment, further raising the material’s clout.

Meanwhile, on December 16, 2023, the Australian government released an update to its list of critical minerals deemed essential to the nation’s energy and security requirements, and also released a new Strategic Materials List of commodities with plans to scope the creation of Strategic Critical Minerals Hubs around the country.   Bearing testimony to the material’s strategic and economic value, Copper made the Australian Government’s Strategic Materials list (along with nickel, aluminum, phosphorus, tin and zinc), a list that identifies commodities which, while not currently considered at risk of supply chain disruption, are essential for the energy transition and the Australian government “will continue supporting the extraction and processing of these minerals and monitoring their market developments.”

It remains to be seen whether the Australian developments will provide a further boost to U.S. domestic efforts to afford copper Critical Mineral status, but it is clear that with or without government action, the material’s star is not going to fade anytime soon.

Conclusion

Time may tell whether 2023 was in fact a watershed year in the critical minerals realm. It appears that we have indeed entered to Post-Petro Tech Age, and it was certainly a year in which tensions between two key global players – the U.S. and China – have reached new heights. Whether or not China overplays its hand in the long run is almost beside the point, as, in the short- to medium term its chokehold in the sector is strong, and we know that the country does not shy away from confrontation.   To not fall behind in the Tech War, decoupling the West’s critical mineral supply chains from China must be the name of the game.

As the West continues this quest, a wary realization appears to have emerged — that the need to coordinate Critical Mineral policy coexists with the growing awareness that even increased supply of essential metals and minerals may not keep pace with rising demand.

How the U.S. and its allies navigate this new resource relationship – multiplied across several score of Critical Minerals – may be one of the principal commercial, diplomatic and national security challenges of this century, and will be a guiding question for 2024.

The post ARPN’s Year in Review – 2023 appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

As we noted here at ARPN, comments made by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California earlier this month underscored that, at least on the trade front, “all arrows very much point to confrontation.”

Concerns over China have also been mounting on Capitol Hill, especially with regards to China’s supply chain leverage over critical minerals.

Earlier this week, Congressman Daniel Webster (R-Fl), along with R-Clermont, along with House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY), House Committee on Armed Services Vice Chair Rob Wittman (R-VA), and 28 of his House colleagues sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urging that the Department develop a plan “to address the national security ramifications of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) interest and investment in seabed mining,” arguing that “[w]e cannot afford to cede another critical mineral resource to China.”

The members note that China’s recent tightening of export controls – see ARPN’s coverage here and here — ties into a “series of efforts from the CCP to further dominate crucial supply chains this year,” and remind DoD of its mandate to “continue improving the resilience of national defense supply chains,” while emphasizing “the importance of evaluating and planning for seabed mining as a new vector of competition with China for resource superiority and security.” 

Considered mostly a futuristic niche issue for a long time, the question of seabed mining has in recent years garnered more attention as the global race for critical has heated up and technology has advanced.

According to the letter:

“The deep-sea bed contains small polymetallic nodules–rich in manganese, cobalt, copper, nickel, and rare earth elements—that are contained in deposits across international waters, often hundreds to thousands of miles from shore and occurring at water depths of 200 meters or greater. Deep-sea mining is regulated by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an institution where the United States only holds observer status. ISA has already granted five of the 31 total deep-sea valuable metal exploration licenses to China, covering 17 percent of the of the total area currently licensed by ISA.  Russia also holds two ISA exploration contracts.China is putting pressure on ISA to accelerate its decision-making process to adopt regulations by 2025 or sooner–a demand that comes on the heels of ISA missing a deadline to establish a regulatory framework earlier this year–at which point mining can begin.”

The members conclude that the United States, and specifically, the Department of Defense, should be “engaging with allies, partners, and industry to ensure that China does not seize unfettered control of deep-sea assets,” and ask several pointed questions to which they demand answers by December 18, 2023.

(For the full letter and questions to DoD, click here.)

While the regulatory, environmental and economic challenges to deep-sea mining are not insignificant, it may just become the newest frontier in the Tech War between the United States and China – and here as on resource development on dry land, the U.S. had better be ready.

The post Members of Congress to DoD on Seabed Mining: “U.S. Can’t Afford to Cede Another Critical Mineral Resource to China” appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

During her remarks on U.S. Competitiveness and the China Challenge, Secretary Raimondo emphasized that China’s “commitment to using non-market trade and investment practices” and “reprioritization away from economic growth toward national security and its assertive military behavior” has forced the United States to defend U.S. business and workers, and to “rethink how we protect our national security interests while also promoting our interests in trade and investment.”

Raimondo defended the United States’ recently imposed “systematic and technology-specific export controls to limit China’s ability to purchase and manufacture certain very advanced computing chips that are used to train large-scale artificial intelligence models, and which power the country’s advanced military and surveillance systems, as well as the manufacturing equipment used to make these cutting edge-chips,” arguing that “[f]or too long, America’s export control strategy was reactive -focused on preventing China from expanding its technological capabilities after it accessed American intellectual property.”  “The new rules,” she added were “strategic, targeted and designed to protect our national security.”

But it was the comments in response to questions by the moderator that gave us a glimpse into what may be coming down the pike.

Jordan Schneider, host of the ChinaTalk Podcast, recounted some of her comments on X, and it appears that in her Q&A, Raimondo showed less restraint than in her carefully crafted speech.

On the U.S.-China dialogue she said:

“This is the biggest threat we’ve ever had, and we need to meet the moment. The world needs us to manage our relationship with China responsibly. To avoid escalation, we’ve got to do all that, but make no mistake about it, China’s not our friend, and we need to be eyes wide open about the extent of that threat. I am ready to win, and I’m ready to do that with all of you, but it’s time to open our aperture and challenge the way we’ve done business in every way if we’re going to meet the threat China poses. And if we’re going to do what needs to be done with this technology.”

When asked if there were other U.S. origin products or types of technologies that the U.S. Government was “looking at in a similar fashion right now” – i.e. would consider imposing export controls on, she said:

“Absolutely, in biotechnology, AI models, AI products, cloud computing, supercomputing. So short answer is yes.”

As followers of ARPN well know, China is no stranger to playing politics with their own trade leverage, and we have seen a tit-for-tat play out in the critical minerals space, where China has taken several steps to tighten the export control ratchet with restrictions on what we might call the Super Criticals – gallium, germanium, graphite — and has already raised the specter of REE restrictions.

Unsurprisingly, China has already voiced criticism of Raimondo’s comments with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin telling media at a regular press briefing in Beijing earlier this week that “The U.S. should stick to the right perception and work with China to deliver on the common understandings reached in the San Francisco meeting” and “stop seeing China as a hypothetical enemy and saying one thing but doing another.”  Raimondo’s remarks, according to Wang, exposed the “Cold War mentality” on the part of the U.S. and showed its “desire for hegemony.”

Diplomatic efforts to improve ties between the countries in the wake of Raimondo’s remarks may continue – as with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng meeting with Richard Haass, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this week –  but to the keen observer it appears all but certain at this point that we’ll be seeing a further escalation of the Tech Wars in the coming months, with the export control ratchet playing a central role.

The question is, which critical mineral will find itself in the crosshairs this time.

The post All Arrows Point to Escalation of Tech Wars – U.S. Secretary of Commerce Comments on U.S. Competitiveness and the China Challenge appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.