Critical metals

Critical metals

This page is dedicated to minerals and metals that are critical to the development of low-carbon technologies and the global energy transition. It provides comprehensive datasets on this topic, including mineral reserves and production over time. Each dataset is accompanied by statistical descriptions - graphs and maps. The shared content has a broad range of research applications, including studies on energy transitions, energy economics, and geopolitical risks.



Definition

A critical mineral is a mineral that is considered essential to a country's economy and whose supply may be threatened by geopolitical factors, finite deposits, or high demand (European Commission, 2023a). As such, critical mineral lists are country-specific. For example, the European Union has identified 34 critical raw materials, while the United States has listed 50 materials (European Commission, 2023b; USGS, 2022). Despite this, there is some convergence for several minerals identified as critical for the energy transition, such as cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium, manganese, nickel, platinum group metals, and rare earth metals (IRENA, 2023).


Critical minerals shares and reserves

This database provides a dataset on mineral extraction and reserves critical for low-carbon technologies, i.e., industrial, battery and storage, solar panels, wind turbines, and nuclear energy technologies. The dataset covers 20 minerals, measured in metric tons, across 52 countries from 1994 to 2020. The author used scrapping methodologies to retrieve data from the United States Geological Survey and translated it into a panel dataset.

The list of critical minerals includes antimony, bauxite, berrylium, cobalt, copper, germanium, graphite, lithium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, niobium, palladium, platinum, rare earth elements (REE), rhenium, silicium, tunsgten, vanadium, and zirconium. This list is based on the European Union Commission's communication and the work of critical mineral experts.

For additional information, please refer to the corresponding paper: Bonnet, T. (2023) “Foreign Direct Investment and Strategic Minerals”, Working Paper EconomiX 2023-7.

Users are required to cite as follows: “Research work based on Bonnet, T. (2023), supported by the EquipEx Pladifes (ANR-21-ESRE-0036) and hosted at the Institut Louis Bachelier".

Critical minerals shares and reserves by Tanguy Bonnet is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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Herfindahl-Hirschman Index for Metal and Mineral Production

This database provides annual data from 1994 to 2021 on the evolution of the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) for a set of 63 metals and minerals that are key to today's economy. The HHI is a widely recognized measure of market concentration and was initially developed in the field of industrial organization to quantify market power.

Here, the HHI is used to measure the concentration of country production for each metal and mineral. The index is calculated by summing the squares of country market shares of metal production. The database primarily represents market concentration at the extraction level, but for certain metals, it also includes concentration data at the refining or smelting stages.

For additional information, please refer to the corresponding paper: Bucciarelli, P. (2024) “Evaluating criticality of strategic metals: Are the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index and usual concentration thresholds still relevant?”, Working Paper EconomiX 2024-3

Users are required to cite as follows: “Research work based on Bucciarelli, P. (2024), supported by EquipEx Pladifes (ANR-21-ESRE-0036) and hosted at the Institut Louis Bachelier“.

Concentration index for Metal and Mineral Production by Pauline Bucciarelli is licensed under CC BY 4.0



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Critical Raw Materials Index - CRMI

The Critical Raw Materials Index (CRMI) represents the price dynamics of the raw materials required for the low-carbon transition. It is based on an unique market and trade dataset covering 29 critical raw materials from 2012 to 2023, with a weekly frequency.

This framework offers policymakers a useful price benchmark to track the underlying metal market dynamics required by the growing clean energy sectors.

For more information about the construction of the index and/or its usage, please refer to the introducing paper or directly contact Capucine Nobletz. To access the index, to date, contact us directly.

Users are required to cite as follows: “Research work based on Hasse J-B. & Nobletz C. (2024), supported by the EquipEx Pladifes (ANR-21-ESRE-0036) and hosted at the Institut Louis Bachelier".




References

Scientific papers
- Hasse J-B. & Nobletz C. (2024) Critical Raw Materials Index - CRMI. Working Paper AMSE Nr 27
- Bonnet, T. (2023) “Foreign Direct Investment and Strategic Minerals”, Working Paper EconomiX 2023-7.
- Bucciarelli, P. (2024) “Evaluating criticality of strategic metals: Are the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index and usual concentration thresholds still relevant?”, Working Paper EconomiX 2024-3

Reports
- IEA (2021), “The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions”, IEA, Paris, License: CC BY 4.0.
- IRENA (2023), “Geopolitics of the energy transition: Critical materials”, International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi.
- European Commission (2023a), “Critical raw materials”.
- European Commission (2023b), “Study on the Critical Raw Materials for the EU 2023 – Final Report”, European Commission.
- USGS (2022), “2022 Final List of Critical Minerals”, U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior.
- USGS (2022), “2022 Final List of Critical Minerals”, U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior.
- Nobletz, C., Svartzman R., and Dikau S. (2024) The EU’s dependency on critical materials: meeting decarbonisation targets in the context of geopolitical risks. Centre for Economic and Technological Exchange (CETEx), London School of Economics and Political Science