To obtain the main matrices, as we have seen, today you have to knock on Beijing’s door. Over 90 percent of the global production of rare earths and graphite is in the hands of China, which also controls more than 80 percent of cobalt production, by virtue of trade agreements with several companies based in Congo.
The Eastern Dragon is also the dominant player in two other key elements for the future of humanity: it covers about 70 percent of the world’s nickel production with Indonesia, which is the planet’s top producer (64 percent), and controls the refining of 71 percent of the world’s lithium along with Chile (20 percent). It is the concentration of the market for these matrices that worries analysts, as described in the latest Global Critical Minerals Outlook, the report published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that analyzes demand, supply, and vulnerabilities related to the main matrices of the future.
A number of nations fewer than the fingers on one hand hold the global market for the matrices of the future. A growing concentration: considering the matrices defined as the big six, in 2024 the top three producers accounted for 86 percent of the global refining capacity compared to 82 percent recorded in 2020. There is some countertrend effort, but analyses estimate a slow path: by 2035 market concentration should return to 2020 levels, nothing more. And not for all these elements. In fact, if we think about copper, nickel, and cobalt production, an intensification of geographic concentration is expected in the near future. Not to mention that, as already said, there will be a global supply deficit for copper and lithium starting from the next decade. China has been skillful in adding to its key role as a producer that of transformer, because it is not enough to extract the matrices, it is essential to know how to refine them. And it is good at looking ahead: for five years now, two-thirds of electric battery recycling capacity has been concentrated in China.
This is not some kind of Western jealousy towards Chinese dominance, but technical issues related to raw material supply. Oligopolies (which in some of the cases I am discussing approach de facto monopolies) expose their players to the risk of abuse of dominant positions. A very dangerous scenario for global supply chains, should there be political, commercial crises or shocks derived from technical interruptions.
Think, for example, of something absurd, like the possibility that a free trade champion such as the USA declared tariff wars on China or that a military conflict – say, in Ukraine or Iran – indirectly generated opposing trade blockades between the European Union and giants allied with Beijing…
Sarcasm aside, reality has already confirmed analysts’ fears. Or rather, analysts’ fears are based on some decisions already underway. China, in fact, has adopted some trade restrictions in the matrix market in the last two years (and this is not the first time it has happened). According to the same IEA report, over 55 percent of some strategic matrices are subject to restrictions. For example, in 2024 China limited exports of gallium, germanium, and some rare earths to the USA, and in 2025 Congo did the same with cobalt, to curb the price drop of this raw material essential for the energy transition. Not only materials but also know-how: recently Beijing restricted the export of some phosphorus and lithium refining technologies.
In short, it seems that more than half of a broad group of matrices useful especially for the energy transition are subject to some form of export control and the same applies to the technologies related to their transformation. And when energy is involved, the price increase due to the use of fossil options instead of renewables has a serious systemic impact on the national economies involved.
