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A race for critical minerals is redefining global geopolitics as world powers rush to shore up supply chains of the finite materials that power the energy and tech sectors. Demand for rare earth metals and other critical minerals has seen a meteoric rise in recent years as the world increasingly electrifies and the tech sector becomes ever more robust and omnipresent. Due to the central role of these ingredients in global and national economies, competition for these supply chains is far more than just a commercial concern – it’s become…
Oil prices haven’t had a breather since the year started as one geopolitical crisis has moved to another. Just a week after the U.S. intervention in Venezuela captured Nicolas Maduro, U.S. President Donald Trump has turned his sights to Iran, threatening a U.S. response to the deadly suppression of mass protests against the Islamic Republic’s regime. Oil settled on Monday at a one-month high amid concerns about a potential supply disruption in the Middle East if Iranian protests further escalate and a U.S. intervention of some kind…
Few debates in Brussels carry as much emotional charge as critical raw materials. Mention lithium, rare earths, graphite, or nickel and the discussion almost immediately turns alarmist. China dominates the supply chain. Europe is dangerously dependent. The energy transition is at risk. The tone often suggests inevitability, as if this imbalance were a law of physics rather than the result of political and industrial choices. Step back from the panic and a different picture emerges. Europe’s vulnerability in critical materials is not geological.…
Traders are betting record amounts of money on China’s metals markets, expecting a continued rally in the prices of base metals and lithium. At the end of 2025 and the start of 2026, speculators held record-high open interest in the base metals copper, zinc, nickel, tin, lead, and aluminum traded on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, and near-record open interest in battery metal lithium on the Guangzhou Futures Exchange. Concerns about tightening global metal supply, lower interest rates driving investment in metal commodities, and expectations…
The numbers are not adding up at Tajikistan’s signature infrastructure project, the Rogun Dam. An independent audit of the project’s financial statements has found a $540 million accounting gap and has determined that electricity-production operations at the work-in-progress facility are losing money. Controversy is nothing new for the Rogun project, which if completed to its maximum specifications would become the world’s tallest dam. Critics argue the dam is a white elephant in the making that threatens to upend a delicate regional…
