A research monograph examining mining, processing concentration, trade, investment, circular supply and governance across strategic mineral value chains.
Abstract or executive overview
Critical minerals now sit at the intersection of energy security, industrial competitiveness, digital infrastructure, defence capability, climate policy and development strategy. The shift does not mean minerals function like oil. Fossil fuels are consumed continuously, while most minerals are embodied in long-lived assets. Mineral disruption therefore acts mainly through the cost, timing and location of new industrial capacity, replacement equipment and manufacturing output. That distinction changes the logic of security policy. The central finding of this monograph is that geological abundance is a weak proxy for secure supply. Security depends on the entire chain between a resource and a qualified industrial input.
Exploration, financing, permitting, mine construction, water and power, beneficiation, refining, chemical conversion, specialised equipment, process knowledge, logistics, trade rules, customer qualification, social legitimacy, recycling and substitution all shape the final outcome. The International Energy Agency reports that critical-mineral demand continues to grow strongly across all scenarios. Under its 2026 Stated Policies Scenario, aggregate demand approaches twice current levels by 2040. Lithium rises more than threefold. Copper adds about seven million tonnes of demand. Refining concentration is even more consequential. Excluding rare earths, the average share held by the top refining country reached 72 percent in 2025, up from 70 percent in 2023. (International Energy Agency, 2026b, 2026f) Trade intervention has moved from theoretical risk to observed disruption.
OECD analysis finds that export restrictions on critical raw materials increased fivefold from 2009 to 2024. About 16 percent of global critical-raw-material trade faced at least one export restriction during 2022 to 2024. Exposure was far higher for cobalt, manganese, graphite and rare earths. (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2026) The IEA reports that the number of mineral tariff codes subject to Chinese export controls tripled since 2023. Policy actions by other producers, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, have also altered supply expectations. (International Energy Agency, 2026b) This study develops three contributions.
First, it synthesises current market evidence and peerreviewed criticality research into an eight-domain Mineral Security System Framework covering geology, project execution, processing, logistics and trade, technology and knowledge, finance and markets, environmental and social legitimacy, and circularity and adaptation. Second, it presents a structured scenario architecture for 2026 to 2040 that separates demand shocks, supply shocks, policy shocks, technological change, environmental disruption and compound events. Third, it proposes a research agenda and testable propositions for universities, policy institutes, mining companies and industrial researchers. The report does not treat a single scenario as a prediction. It treats scenarios as stress tests. It also does not assume that the fastest route to more supply is always the most resilient route.
Low-cost supply, geographically diverse supply, environmentally credible supply and politically stable supply are related goals, yet they are not identical. The practical research challenge is i to determine where redundancy, inventory, substitution, recycling, local processing, long-term contracts and public risk sharing produce the largest resilience gain relative to economic cost.