China has yet to approve the deal, with Bunge executives and advisers growing increasingly concerned the political rift will continue to hold up the process, said the people, who asked not to be named because they’re not authorized to discuss the progress of the merger. Chief executive officer Greg Heckman has traveled to China a number of times for talks with authorities, the people said.

Bunge, which has its corporate headquarters in Missouri, is the B in the so-called ABCD quartet of storied agricultural commodity trading firms that dominate crop markets. The company announced it would buy Viterra in June 2023. At the time, JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimated the acquisition would create a $25 billion agriculture giant capable of competing with Cargill Inc., the world’s top crop trader.

Bunge is in the final stage of regulatory approval and it’s had a “constructive dialogue” with Chinese officials, the company said in a statement to Bloomberg. A spokesman for Viterra deferred questions to Bunge. China’s commerce ministry and the state administration for market regulation didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The company has already missed its initial deadline to close the deal by mid-2024. It has also blown past the two automatic three-month extensions in the agreement. If the deal falls through due to failure to obtain antitrust approvals, Bunge would have to pay Viterra a $400 million termination fee.

It isn’t unusual for Chinese reviews of takeovers by foreign companies to drag on. But the recent souring of relations between the US and China and President Donald Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs have come at a critical point for the merger.

The deal has already received the green light from the European Union and Canada, where there were concerns about the impact on competition. Argentina has yet to weigh in, but antitrust laws in the South American nation allow for the deal to be completed, with any remedial action potentially being required later.

Bunge shares fell 2% on the news, and then quickly erased losses. The stock was up 0.3% as of 12:20 p.m. in New York. The company operates about five oilseed plants in China, while Viterra has a crop marketing unit there.

China has only blocked deals on rare occasions since its anti-monopoly law came to force in 2008, such as Coca-Cola Co.’s bid to buy China Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd. in 2009. Other deals in limbo amid the trade war include chip-designer Synopsys Inc.’s pending $34 billion purchase of software developer Ansys Inc., one of the biggest acquisitions in recent years.

China could impose conditions on deal terms to maintain competition. When Japanese trading house Marubeni purchased US grains trader Gavilon a decade ago, China required the companies to maintain independent trading units for selling soybeans to China.

On the Bunge deal, there was scrutiny from the Chinese side that the merger will increase industry concentration and could impact Beijing’s food security interests, one of the people said. The person added that the relevant regulators are conducting a careful compliance review amid the significance of the deal.

Bunge was founded in 1818 by Amsterdam importer Johann Bunge, and seven decades later it allied with another family to start trading grains. It expanded to Latin America in 1884 and the US in 1923. The company has repeatedly shifted its headquarters — to Argentina, Brazil, New York and, more recently, Chesterfield, Missouri, which is a suburb of St. Louis

The company said in the statement the deal will “strengthen global food supply resilience, benefiting farmers and end consumers around the world by ensuring a stable, diversified and reliable supply of key agricultural products.”

While Bunge is listed in New York, it’s domiciled in Switzerland, with its commodities trading desk based in Geneva. About 80% of the processing capacity of a combined Bunge-Viterra company would be located outside the US, as would more than 85% of employees.

(By Isis Almeida and Hallie Gu)

Trafigura was behind a major part of the just over 20,000 tons requested for withdrawal on Friday, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named as the information isn’t public. The orders cut available inventories of copper on the LME in Asia to the lowest in a year.

Mercuria and other traders have also been taking delivery from the LME in recent months, the people said. Bloomberg previously reported that Mercuria had been a major buyer of copper on the exchange.

The withdrawals come amid growing signs of tightness in China: the Shanghai copper market is in the steepest backwardation in nearly two years and inventories on the exchange witnessed record drawdowns.

Traders say that Chinese copper buying has been strong in spite of concerns about the trade war with the US. At the same time, the threat of tariffs on American copper imports has spurred a rush to ship copper to the US, draining stocks in the rest of the world.

Available, “on-warrant” LME stocks dropped to 108,725 tons as a result of Friday’s drawdown. That includes 66,700 tons in Europe, which traders say is almost all Russian material, for which there are fewer buyers.

Available LME copper stocks in Asian warehouses fell to 42,025 tons, the lowest since May 2024. Most of that was in Kaohsiung, the Taiwanese port that accounted for more than 80% of Friday’s requested drawdowns.

Mercuria’s head of metals Kostas Bintas told Bloomberg in March that the rush to ship metal to the US risked leaving the rest of the world perilously short of copper, and predicted that prices could hit record highs.

While prices plunged in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariff announcement on April 2, they have since rebounded. On Friday, benchmark LME copper prices rose as much as 2.7% to $9,485.50 a ton.

Spokespeople for Trafigura and Mercuria declined to comment.

“The LME monitors its markets closely and has the necessary controls in place to ensure continued market orderliness,” a spokesperson said.

(By Jack Farchy and Alfred Cang)

On the COMEX, copper for July delivery rose for a second straight session, gaining 2.5% to $4.743 per pound ($10,434 per tonne).

China’s Commerce Ministry said it had taken note of US officials’ interest in talks and was evaluating the possibility of engagement. The development offered some relief to markets rattled by escalating trade tensions.

Copper has come under pressure from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, which have raised concerns about slowing economic growth and weakening demand for industrial metals. So far, Beijing has rebuffed requests for direct talks between the two leaders.

Adding to the bullish sentiment, copper stockpiles in Shanghai have dropped significantly.

On Friday, available inventories on the London Metal Exchange also declined, following a large drawdown of material stored in Taiwan.

Copper and the new resource spheres of control

MINING.COM and The Northern Miner mapped global copper production through a geopolitical lens, dividing the world into five “spheres of control”: American, Chinese, Russian, Coalition of the Willing, and Undrafted.

These groupings reflect geographic, social, cultural, and economic ties—as well as potential alignments in an increasingly polarized world.

Explore the full infographic:

China has just rearmed one of its most powerful economic weapons: rare earth export controls. Can the West afford another price shock like the one that rocked global markets in 2011?

To unpack what’s at stake — and why the world still hasn’t built a serious alternative —MINING.COM’s Devan Murugan speaks to Ryan Castilloux, founder of Adamas Intelligence and one of the world’s top critical minerals analysts.

Read More: What are Ukraine’s critical minerals and what do we know about the deal with US?

On the COMEX, copper for July delivery climbed 1.6% to $4.683 per pound ($10,302 per tonne) after tumbling 5% on Wednesday. In London, three-month copper futures rose above $9,200 per tonne, recovering part of Wednesday’s 3% loss.

The rebound came after US President Donald Trump said there was a “very good chance” of reaching an agreement with China, although he emphasized it would need to be on US terms. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer added that the US was close to announcing an initial batch of trade deals.

Copper fell 6% in April — its worst monthly performance since mid-2022 — amid growing concerns of a global trade war. Washington is also reviewing whether to impose tariffs on US copper imports.

Adding to the volatility, supply concerns resurfaced in Peru — the world’s third-largest copper producer — as community protests disrupted operations at two major mines. While protests at Antamina (owned by BHP and Glencore) were quickly resolved, logistics at Las Bambas (operated by China’s MMG.) are still being restored.

Meanwhile, the International Copper Study Group now forecasts a larger global surplus of the metal. After meeting with industry leaders in Lisbon, the group revised its 2025 forecast to a surplus of 289,000 tonnes — more than double the 138,000 tonnes from last year and significantly above its previous 2025 estimate of 194,000 tonnes.

The surplus is projected to remain elevated in 2026 at 209,000 tonnes, marking three consecutive years of oversupply.

(With files from Bloomberg)

According to Goldman Sachs trader Adam Gillard, nearly 1 million oz. were sold through the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) and the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) before the market closed for the Chinese

holiday. This reverses nearly all of the positions bought last week, sending China’s total onshore gold holdings down by 5% from historic highs.

While China’s share of global open interest remains at a high level (about 40%) despite the liquidation, the upward momentum seems to have temporarily peaked, Gillard wrote in a note.

The Chinese selloff took spot gold prices down close to $3,200 an ounce on Thursday morning, a level last seen on April 14.

A report released by Gillard earlier showed that Chinese investors increased their holdings by 1.2 million oz. of gold through the two exchanges last Tuesday, coinciding with the yellow metal’s record-setting move above $3,500 per ounce.

The recent price movement highlights the significant influence China has on the global gold market. In his note, Gillard pointed out that recent fluctuations in gold prices have “almost all occurred around the opening hours of the Chinese market.”

He also highlighted gold’s unique status as a “flow commodity” — meaning it is especially sensitive to large, sudden shifts in investor sentiment and liquidity.

Still, bullion remains one of the top-performing assets this year, gaining about 23% while setting multiple record highs.

A new chart from MINING.COM and The Northern Miner shows China now controls over half the world’s copper processing capacity, far ahead of its rivals.

 MINING.COM‘s Devan Murugan sat down with Northern Miner Group President Anthony Vaccaro, to unpack what this power shift means for global supply chains and investors.

Explore the full infographic:

According to Chinese state media, a group of scientists recently managed to refuel a working thorium molten salt reactor without causing a shutdown — a feat never achieved before. The success was announced by the project’s chief scientist Xu Hongjie during a closed-door meeting at the Chinese Academy of Sciences on April 8, Chinese news outlet Guangming Daily reported last week.

Such a breakthrough could be transformative to the global energy landscape, as thorium has long been hailed as a far safer and cheaper alternative to uranium in nuclear reactors. While also a radioactive element, thorium produces less waste, and the silver-colored metal, mostly found in monazite, is much more common in the Earth’s crust.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), thorium is three times more abundant in nature than uranium, but historically has found little use in power generation due to the significant economic and technical hurdles.

China takes lead

The latest announcement in China represents a key step in removing some of the hurdles. In the April 8 meeting, Xu said China “now leads the global frontier” in nuclear energy, as cited by Guangming Daily.

The reactor used by Xu’s team is a prototype located in the Gobi Desert, known for its rich endowment of minerals such as uranium and rare earths. The experimental unit is able to generate 2 megawatts of thermal power, using molten salt to carry the fuel and manage heat, with thorium serving as its fuel source.

Compared to uranium, thorium can generate a significantly higher amount of energy via nuclear fission. A Stanford University research estimates that thorium’s power generation could be 35 times higher. Thorium molten-salt reactors (TMSRs) are also compact, do not require water cooling, cannot experience a meltdown and produce very little long-lived radioactive waste, according to the IAEA.

When announcing the breakthrough, Xu acknowledged that its project was based on previous research by US researchers who pioneered molten salt reactor technology in the 1950s, but abandoned shortly after to pursue uranium-fueled ones.

Xu — who was tasked with the thorium reactor project in 2009 — told Chinese media that his team spent years dissecting declassified American documents, replicating experiments and innovating beyond them.

Vast thorium supply

The technology breakthrough follows a report earlier this year that China’s thorium reserves, already known as the world’s largest, may actually be bigger than previously estimated, according to a national survey cited by the South China Morning Post in February.

In the report, scientists claim that the Bayan Obo mining complex in Inner Mongolia, which is the world’ s largest rare earth producer and has a huge amount of thorium in tailings, could yield 1 million tonnes of thorium – enough to fuel China for 60,000 years.

The Chinese government has long aimed to harness the power-generation potential of thorium, which it sees as part of the nation’s strategy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. The country, as the world’s-second-largest carbon emitter, has reportedly been working on thorium-fueled reactors since the 1970s.

Last year, China approved the construction of the world’s first thorium molten-salt reactors in the Gobi Desert. These are larger than the one used in Xu’s project, and are expected to generate 10 megawatts of electricity starting in 2029.

On the COMEX, copper for July delivery dropped 5.4% to $4.609 per lb. ($10,139 a tonne) in morning trading. The selloff was driven in part by Chinese investors unwinding arbitrage trades across New York, London, and Shanghai. Wednesday marked the last trading day in China before the May holiday.

Adding to bearish sentiment was a key Chinese manufacturing index that came in significantly below expectations, suggesting factory activity is contracting amid growing trade tensions with the US. The data undercut recent optimism fueled by plunging stockpiles and rising import premiums in China.

Surplus set to double

The downturn also follows a revised forecast from the International Copper Study Group (ICSG), which now expects the global copper surplus to more than double in 2025.

After wrapping up its biannual meeting with industry leaders in Lisbon, the ICSG said it expects the global surplus to reach 289,000 tonnes next year, up from 138,000 tonnes in 2024 and significantly higher than its prior projection of 194,000 tonnes for 2025.

The surplus is forecast to remain elevated in 2026 at 209,000 tonnes, marking a third consecutive year of oversupply following a balanced market in 2023.

According to the group, the growing surplus reflects a mix of rising production and softening demand, with US tariffs and global trade uncertainties weighing on industrial consumption.

Total gold demand reached 1,206 tonnes in the first three months of 2025, a 1% increase from the same period a year ago, the WGC said in a new report Wednesday. Soaring inflows into gold ETFs fuelled a 170% surge in investment demand to 552 tonnes, the highest since the first quarter of 2022, WGC said.

As gold prices set multiple record highs this year, including touching $3,500.05 per oz. last week, investors have piled into physical gold ETFs, which grew by $21 billion in the first quarter, their second highest quarterly level since the second quarter of 2020.

Gold’s average price reached $2,860 per oz. in the quarter, a 38% jump from a year ago, according to data compiled by the London Bullion Market Association.

Flows into gold

Investment flows into physical gold will probably continue to gather pace this year, the WGC said. Key factors supporting demand include continued geopolitical tensions, near-term stagflation risks, medium-term recession risks, elevated correlations between stocks and bonds and an expected increase in US deficits.

Central banks bought 244 tonnes of gold in the first quarter, 21% less than in the same period a year ago but within the quarterly range of the last three years. Persistent trade tensions will probably drive full-year central bank purchases close to the range of the past three years, according to the WGC.

First-quarter bar and coin demand rose 2.6% to 325 tonnes, which is 15% above the five-year quarterly average. China accounted for much of the increase, posting its second-highest quarter of retail investment.

Tech demand

Technology demand was little changed at 80.5 tonnes. Ongoing artificial intelligence adoption drove continued growth in the electronics sector, but uncertainty over tariffs should result in a challenging environment for the rest of the year, the WGC said.

Jewelry consumption shrank 21% from the year-ago quarter to 380 tonnes, weighed down by elevated prices. Consumption in the period hit its lowest level since the Covid-19 pandemic brought global economies to a standstill in 2020, and WGC economists predict full-year jewelry demand will be weaker than expected in 2025 on lower growth and higher prices.

Total gold supply grew 1% from a year earlier to 1,206 tonnes, with mine production hitting a first-quarter record of 856 tonnes. Recycling declined 1% as consumers kept their gold hoping for higher prices.

Mine supply this year will probably stay close to its 2024 record level, the WGC said. “Unprecedented” cash generation should allow announced development plans to advance and mine production to stay strong. While Ghana, Chile and Canada have healthy production pipelines, disruptions in Turkey and Russia and cutbacks in Australia are expected to weigh on total output.

Read More: Annual gold price forecast tops $3,000 for first time: Reuters poll

The Group, which recently concluded its biannual meeting with key industry players in Lisbon, forecasts global copper surplus to reach 289,000 tonnes in 2025, more than double the 138,000 tonnes from last year. This forecast also represents a larger surplus than its earlier projection of 194,000 tonnes.

In 2026, the surplus is expected to remain high at 209,000 tonnes, extending the surplus for a third straight year after a largely balanced market in 2023.

The widening surplus over the 2025-26 period, according to ICSG, can be largely attributed to higher mine supply and rising smelting capacity.

Mine supply growth

For 2025, the Group expects global mine production to increase by 2.3% to 23.5 million tonnes, benefiting mainly from the ramp-up of the Kamoa-Kakula mine in the DRC and Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia and the commissioning of the new Malmyz mine in Russia.

In 2026, a higher growth of 2.5% is anticipated, supported by the continued ramp-up of new/expanded capacity (including China), an expected improvement in Chilean and Zambian output, and a recovery in Indonesia from expected declines in 2025.

In both years, ICSG said a series of smaller expansions and the start-up of a number of small and medium-sized mines will also contribute to the increase in global production notably in the DRC, Brazil, Iran, Uzbekistan, Ecuador, Eritrea, Greece, Angola and Morocco.

Higher refining capacity

The ICSG also sees expanded Chinese smelting capacity, as well as the start-up of new refineries in India, Indonesia and DRC, to contribute to a 2.9% increase in refined copper output this year.

In 2026, however, total refined production is expected to decline by 1.5%, due to constrained availability of copper concentrates leading to a slowdown in primary refined production. This will be offset partially continued growth in the secondary processing sector, which generates refined copper from scrap.

Demand impact

According to the ICSG, uncertainty surrounding international trade policy is likely to weaken the global economic outlook and negatively impact copper demand, dragging this year’s refined copper usage down to 2.4% compared to its previous forecast of 2.7% and the 2.8% recorded in 2024.

Copper usage growth is expected to slow further to 1.8% in 2026, largely reflecting an anticipated loss of momentum in China, where copper usage is expected to shrink from 2% this year to just 0.8% next year.

Demand in other key copper regions such as Europe, Japan and the US is also expected to remain “subdued”, leaving the Asia region as the lone key driver of demand.

However, ICSG also acknowledged that demand drivers such as energy transition technology and data centers will continue to support copper usage, helping to offset some of the broader manufacturing hit from a prolonged trade war.

The full ICSG report is here.

China’s copper smelting industry is in a deep funk as an ever-growing number of furnaces jostle for limited concentrate supplies. Smelting capacity is up a quarter since 2021 and is set to rise around 10% this year, even as mine closures overseas keep supplies of the crucial raw material tight.

The fees smelters receive for refining ore, called concentrate treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs), are already negative and set to fall further, according to six traders and analysts. Negative TC/RCs mean smelters must pay miners or traders to process concentrate into metal, in effect paying their customers.

However, smelters are unlikely to cut significant production despite dire TC/RCs because high prices for smelting byproducts like gold and sulfur are partially offsetting losses, they said.

Record prices for gold are offsetting some of the losses for processing concentrate rich in gold, according to one trader, who said he had heard of one TC/RC deal at minus $80 per metric ton or minus 8.0 cents per pound.

Smaller, older smelters without the advanced technology to extract gold and other byproducts are likely to struggle, however, because they only account for a small part of production, according to three sources. Cuts and closures at these facilities are unlikely to drag down Chinese copper output, they said.

The copper concentrates TC/RC index hit a record low of -$34.71 per metric ton and minus 3.47 cents per pound on April 18, according to Shanghai Metals Market.

But in a sign of how the industry is powering on despite months of negative TC/RCs, analysts at Mysteel consultancy expect refined copper output to grow 10% this year.

The steady growth in refined copper output is underpinned by China’s massive expansion of copper smelting capacity, estimated by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (BMI) at 12.78 million tons this year, up 8% from last year and 25% since 2021.

China’s refined copper output declined only 0.5% year-on-year to 3.35 million metric tons in the first quarter, according to official data.

(By Violet Li and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Saad Sayeed)

Read More: Global copper surplus to more than double in 2025 – ICSG

The spin-off includes mines across South America, Central Asia, Africa, and Oceania. Among them is the Buriticá gold mine in Colombia, the country’s largest, which has been the target of attacks by illegal miners.

Zijin, China’s largest gold and copper producer, said the move aims to accelerate its global expansion, improve asset valuation and attract international investors. Despite being in the early stages and subject to regulatory approvals, the company believes the spin-off will strengthen its market position and increase shareholder value amid rising gold prices.

Zijin Gold International will remain a subsidiary after the listing, with its financial results still included in the parent company’s consolidated statements. 

The timing of the planned spin-off aligns with a surge in global gold prices, which have hit record highs in April amid mounting uncertainty around US-China trade tensions. Rising prices could further drive the revaluation of its gold assets and reduce risks tied to overseas operations.

The proposed listing still requires approval from Chinese regulators, shareholders, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, among others.

A historic run in gold prices has shaken up the MINING.com Top 50, putting precious metals back on top—and pushing battery metal and base metal giants down the list.

The latest rankings reveal fresh momentum for gold stocks, new market entrants, and a major geographic shift in mining power.

In a conversation with Devan Murugan, Frik Els, the editor behind the list, breaks down what these changes signal for investors, and where the industry may be heading next.

In its latest report, Sprott notes that uranium prices have stabilized near $65/lb following a correction driven not by weakening fundamentals, but by a pause in utility contracting. Buyers have been waiting for clarity on US tariffs and potential trade restrictions on Russian enriched uranium.

Some of that uncertainty began to clear in early April, helping steady the spot market. Sprott maintains that uranium’s decline reflects macro sentiment and technical selling—not a reversal in the commodity’s structural outlook.

“Despite market pressures, uranium’s term price remains stable at $80/lb and global supply is constrained below demand levels,” the firm said.

Resilience amid volatility

While broader equity and commodity markets have seen volatility in recent months, uranium has shown relative stability.

In early April, it remained uncorrelated with other risk assets—holding firm even as equities sold off, bond markets wobbled, and volatility spiked.

Uranium and uranium equities have outperformed other commodities and global equities over the past five years, driven by a deepening supply deficit and growing global policy support. That trend, Sprott argues, is far from over.

Supply lags demand

Supply constraints remain a central part of the bullish case. Few new uranium projects are advancing, and some juniors—like NexGen, Deep Yellow, and Paladin—have delayed development. Kazatomprom has also guided production toward the lower end of its outlook amid cost and input challenges.

In Australia, heavily shorted producers such as Paladin and Boss Energy have come under pressure, but Sprott believes short positioning in uranium equities is out of sync with underlying market dynamics. “This wave of equity weakness is a sentiment story, not a structural one,” the report reads.

On the demand side, China continues to expand its nuclear fleet, and the US—backed by bipartisan support—has reaffirmed its commitment to nuclear power as a strategic asset. Tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Meta are also pushing for an ambitious tripling of global nuclear power capacity by 2050 to meet growing baseload energy needs.

Sprott expects the next leg of the uranium bull cycle to begin as utilities return to the market and long-term contracting resumes. With global uranium production still well below reactor requirements and long timelines for new supply to come online, the firm sees a structurally tight market for years to come.

The Yangshan premium — named after a key Shanghai trade terminal — jumped from a low of $35 a ton in late February to $94 on Tuesday, according to data from researcher Shanghai Metals Market.

The premium is paid by buyers on top of exchange prices for imported copper, and the sharp rebound reflects tightness in the market as trade tensions persist. Traders in China have reported a burst of strong domestic demand, and stockpiles in Chinese warehouses have plunged in recent weeks.

“The continuous destocking in the Shanghai region has kept Shanghai spot copper premiums firm,” ANZ Group Holdings Ltd. wrote in a note.

The threat of copper-specific tariffs has encouraged a large flow of metal to the US ahead of any duties, tightening markets elsewhere and spurring more competition for the industrial metal.

On the London Metal Exchange, copper has rebounded since its collapse during the wider market turmoil that followed US President Donald Trump’s unveiling of sweeping tariffs at the start of the month. The metal sank to its lowest in a year, triggering a wave of buying from China that helped lift prices.

LME copper rose 0.7% to settle at $9,440 a ton at 5:50 p.m. in London. Other LME metals were mixed, with aluminum rising 1.3% and nickel falling 0.4%.

Read More: Global copper processing controlled by a familiar few

The rise in gold prices has led to a shift in consumer behaviour, with traditional gold products such as gold ornaments and jewellery giving way to gold bars and coins as a means of investment.

Gold jewellery consumption slumped 26.85% year-on-year to 134.531 tons during the first quarter, while consumption for gold bars and coins surged 29.81% to 138.018 tons, driven by investors seeking safe-haven assets amid geopolitical uncertainty and economic volatility.

China’s domestic gold production rose 1.49% year-on-year to 87.243 tons in the first quarter of 2025.

Including gold produced from imported materials, which totalled 53.587 tons, China’s total gold output reached 140.830 tons in the first quarter, up 1.18% from a year earlier.

(By Violet Li and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Janane Venkatraman and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

The copper-and-cobalt giant’s chairman Yuan Honglin and vice chair Li Chaochun both resigned for personal reasons and had no disagreement with the board, CMOC said in an exchange filing on Sunday. Two new executive directors were nominated to the board, and a new vice president appointed, while Ives, already head of CMOC’s trading unit IXM, will become chief commercial officer.

The changes mark a significant shift at the top of CMOC, which has emerged from relative obscurity to become the world’s biggest cobalt miner and a major copper producer, largely thanks to acquisitions in Africa. The new structure will help CMOC meet its ambitions for more growth, the company said.

“CMOC will focus on mining industry M&A, including copper, gold, and other minor metals mines,” CMOC said in comments via WeChat to Bloomberg News. The new management has “rich experience in mine operation” and is able to acquire, develop and operate large greenfield projects, it said.

The company’s Hong Kong shares rose as much as 4.6% after the announcement, and following a near-doubling of first-quarter net income.

New team

The two board nominees are Que Chaoyang, who was appointed as chief operating officer, and Liu Jianfeng, appointed as chief investment officer. Que is a former executive at Zijin Mining Group Co., while Liu has held multiple roles in the energy sector.

Tan Xiao, a former senior manager at Huawei Technologies Co., will be a vice president.

But it’s the promotion of Ives, who spent 23 years at Glencore and wanted to be its boss, will attract attention globally. He’s been chief executive officer of CMOC’s trading arm since 2022, overhauling the unit as CMOC aims to challenge the dominance of firms like Glencore and Trafigura Group in global metals trading.

CMOC is already a major player in commodities linked to the energy transition after its expansion in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It passed Glencore as top cobalt supplier in 2023, but also has significant clout in copper and ambitions in lithium and nickel. Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. has a 25% stake.

The exit of Yuan Honglin, chairman and non-executive director, will become effective once CMOC gets approval to appoint additional directors at an upcoming shareholder meeting. The resignation of vice chairman and chief investment officer Li Chaochun has already taken effect, it said.

CMOC reported 3.95 billion yuan ($542 million) of first-quarter net income on Friday, building on a record year of earnings in 2024. The company recently agreed to buy Canada’s Lumina Gold Corp., allowing it to tap the largest primary gold deposit in Ecuador.

Read More: CMOC to double copper output at Congo mines to 1 million tonnes by 2028

In an earnings call this week, Musk confirmed that production of its Optimus robots is being impacted by the “magnet issue” — referring to the key robotics component that now requires Beijing approval to be shipped into the US.

Earlier this month, China announced export restrictions on seven rare earth minerals in response to the punitive tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump. The export curbs also extend to rare earth magnets and other finished products, which have vital uses across various high-tech industries, and in some cases, are indispensable to military applications.

“China wants some assurances that these are not used for military purposes, which obviously they’re not. They’re just going into a humanoid robot,” said Musk in his Tuesday call.

In light of these measures, companies like Tesla are now required to apply to the Ministry of Commerce to obtain their export licences — a process that can range from six or seven weeks to even several months. Such a process, says Musk, would undoubtedly hamper the Optimus rollout plans.

Still, the Tesla boss — who pledged to take a step back from politics and refocus on his business ventures — told investors he remains optimistic of realizing the initial goal of churning out thousands of Optimus robots by year-end, then scaling up its production to 1 million units by 2030.

Musk also acknowledged that the robots’ production timeline is heavily dependent on the availability of critical components, stating that “Optimus production will move as fast as the slowest and least lucky component”.

Tesla’s first prototype of Optimus was launched in 2022. At that time, Musk said these general-purpose humanoid robots, which are designed to perform tasks that are dangerous, repetitive or boring for humans using advanced AI technologies, “has the potential to be more significant than its vehicle business over time.”

In addition to the Optimus project, Tesla’s core electric vehicle business is also expected to feel the impacts of China’s rare earth export restrictions.

A senior automotive executive told the Financial Times that the critical mineral restrictions would be “consequential” for Tesla, describing them as a “7 or 8” on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of severity.

China currently produces around 90% of the world’s rare earth minerals, making it a key supplier to the US, which only has one producing rare earths mine – Mountain Pass in California.

Even as countries like the US start to explore options and ramp up production, China is still expected to dominate the global supply with a 54% market share by 2030, according to IEA projections.

​

From January 2009 through August 2011, the monthly average price of dysprosium (Dy) oxide (China FOB) increased 26-fold, from $91/kg to $2,377/kg.

This price spike is often attributed to China halting rare earth exports to Japan amidst a territorial dispute, but in reality the rally had started months prior and was accelerated by a multitude of different forces; namely, falling Chinese export quotas, rising Chinese export duties, China’s weaponization of rare earth exports, a clampdown on illegal production in the nation, and resultant speculation and panic buying by end users.

This year, with China imposing export restrictions on a suite of rare earth materials earlier this month, including Dy oxide and other Dy-containing products, such as NdFeB magnets, flows from China to global end users are currently being bogged down by bureaucracy as sellers in China apply for and await the receipt of export licenses for affected orders – a process expected to take upwards of 45 business days.

Over the long term, these restrictions will have lasting impacts on global rare earths trade through the galvanization of supply chain development efforts in the US, Europe and elsewhere. In the near term, however, global end users – mindful of the 2010/11 price spike – face major uncertainty with respect to supplies and prices.

For the most part, rare earth prices have responded negatively to the new export restrictions, despite a sustained reduction in supplies from Myanmar and the recent stoppage of concentrate exports to China by MP Materials. Interestingly, prices were also initially indifferent when China halted exports to Japan in September 2010, but three months later embarked on a historic upswing that remains unmatched to this day.

Below is a summary of key developments from January 2009 through August 2011 that led to Dy oxide’s meteoric price rise.

January 2009: $91/kg

As of January 2009, China’s rare earth export quotas (i.e., the amount it permitted for export) had fallen steadily since 2005, down 13% in four years, raising concerns among end users.

Over the same period, China re-introduced export duties on rare earths in 2006 and gradually ratcheted them up from 10% to as high as 25% for a strategic selection of products, including neodymium metal, as well as dysprosium and terbium carbonate and chloride.

August 2009: $114/kg

With export quotas down and duties up, China’s MIIT released a draft report in August 2009 that hinted Beijing would ban the export of five rare earth elements within the next five years.

The following month, the New York Times reported that China was planning to further reduce its export quotas in 2010.

The price of dysprosium jumped 26% versus January but went largely unchanged thereafter through the end of 2009.

January 2010: $129/kg

In January 2010, China raised export duties on Fe-Dy alloy, a key input for high performance NdFeB magnets, from 10% to 20%, lifting the price of Dy products, including Dy oxide, by a similar rate month over month.

At the same time, China slashed its first of two export quotas for the year, as foreshadowed by the New York Times, leading the price of Dy oxide to more than double by July as end users raced to secure material.

In July 2010, China announced a 72% reduction to its second export quota for the year, exacerbating concerns while propelling the price of Dy oxide 26% higher month-over-month.

Two months later, in September 2010, China temporarily banned rare earth exports to Japan amid a territorial dispute.

Nevertheless, the price of Dy oxide and many other rare earths increased just modestly between July and December 2010, but the fever was nearing a boil.

In December 2010, Reuters reported that China planned to reduce its export quota for the first half of 2011 by another 35%, fueling a January price jump and a historic upswing to follow.

January 2011: $343/kg

Following the Reuters report, the five-month-stagnant price jumped 18% in January, 19% in February, 28% in March, 31% in April and 17% in May to a record $799/kg – a historic rally that remains unmatched to this day.

August 2011: $2,377/kg

A month later, in June 2011, the price soared 80% to $1,440/kg as the Chinese government cracked down on illegal mining in the nation and by August 2011 prices topped $2,377/kg, a 26-fold increase in just 31 months.

For the next five months, the price began to deflate but held above $2,000/kg into January 2012.

In February 2012, the average price fell to $1,633/kg and by December 2012 was down to $748/kg.

The following three years (2013/14/15) saw the price drop by roughly 33% each year to a floor of around $180/kg in 2016.

Short lived spike, long lasting fallout

While the price spike was short lived, the fallout was profound and enduring. In the years that followed, a quiet revolution unfolded in the electric vehicle sector. Where REE-powered motors once reigned uncontested, their dominance eroded as some manufacturers adopted or pivoted to alternatives.

From a negligible share of less than 1% in 2010, EVs powered by REE-free motors surged to over 12% of global sales by late 2017.

Adamas Intelligence points to this as a textbook case of engineered demand destruction – a deliberate shift to alternatives born of caution, catalyzed by the trauma of the 2010/11 price surge.

Companies, burned by volatility and unwilling to remain at the mercy of China’s whims, sought refuge in innovation, re-engineering their futures to sidestep the rare earth chokehold.

By 2018, however, with prices low and volatility tempered, REE-powered motors quickly recaptured market share, with 97% of all EVs sold each year since 2017 using them.

In 2017, when REE-free motor adoption peaked, the EV industry was still a relatively small end-use category and thus the impact on overall demand was less substantial than it would be today.

Undoubtedly, China recognizes this and will play its hand carefully this time around.

April 2025: China announces new export controls

Fast forward to this month and China is at it again, unveiling export controls on select rare earth products. But this time, the playbook feels different – less blunt force, more scalpel.

Adamas sees a calculated precision in Beijing’s approach, an intent to wield its resource dominance with surgical intent.

The likely targets? Initially, industries like defense contractors and drone makers, sectors where REE scarcity could deliver maximum disruption to rivals, particularly in the West.

Meanwhile, China appears poised to spare others, like the EV industry, from the worst of the fallout – perhaps a nod to its own stake in the green revolution or a bid to keep global markets from spiraling into further chaos.

Unlike the reckless two-order-of-magnitude price surge of the early 2010s, this move suggests a China keen to inflict pain where it hurts most while dodging the collateral damage of a full-blown crisis.

The message is clear: China knows the power it holds and is learning to wield it with chilling finesse.

For the rest of the world, the echoes of 2010/11 still linger – a haunting reminder of vulnerability, a call to diversify, innovate, or risk being caught in the crosshairs of a prolonged resource war where the stakes only grow higher.

With China tightening its grip on tungsten exports, producers outside its borders are stepping into a rare moment of global opportunity.

As the West rushes to secure this critical mineral — essential for defense, electronics, and aerospace — companies like Almonty Industries are positioning themselves as strategic suppliers in a reshaped global market.

Its South Korean mine is about to open, and the company is re-domiciling to the U.S. as it takes on a bigger role in the geopolitical metals race. Mining.com’s Devan Murugan spoke to Almonty CEO Lewis Black.

Signed in private, the order aims to accelerate the mining of critical minerals in both US and international waters, part of a broader strategy to counter China’s dominance in the global supply of these resources.

“The US authorization… violates international law and harms the overall interests of the international community,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said, the BBC reported.

The move has stirred international criticism, especially over its provision to allow seabed exploration beyond US jurisdiction. Deep-sea mining has increasingly come into focus as countries seek access to valuable metals like nickel, manganese, and cobalt — key components in batteries for electric vehicles and smartphones.

Estimates suggest the ocean floor holds between $8 trillion and $16 trillion worth of these metals. In US waters alone, more than a billion metric tons of mineral-rich nodules could be extracted, potentially adding $300 billion to its GDP over a decade and creating 100,000 jobs, according to administration officials.

“The United States has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources,” Trump stated in the order.

The directive calls for fast-tracking permits under the 1980 Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act and sets up a permitting process along the US Outer Continental Shelf. It also pushes for quicker review of applications to mine in international waters — a move expected to trigger push back from the global community.

“We want the US to get ahead of China in this resource space under the ocean, on the ocean bottom,” a US official told the BBC.

Environmental groups remain critical of seabed mining, warning it could irreparably damage fragile marine ecosystems that are still poorly understood and already stressed by pollution, industrial trawling and climate change.

In a recent interview, Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company (TMC), told MINING.COM that the US government’s renewed emphasis on domestic mineral production is well-timed.

“Mineral security is really important for critical minerals, and many in the new administration have been tremendous supporters,” Barron said. “So we’re going into 2025 thinking this will be a breakout year.”

TMC, which is partnered with the Republic of Nauru, plans to submit its first application to begin mining operations on June 27, just ahead of the International Seabed Authority’s next meeting in July.

Speaking at the Future of Energy Security summit held in London this week, IEA executive director Fatih Birol highlighted the strong expansion of clean energy technologies in recent years — while remarkable — also creates a new problem: the urgent need for raw materials.

“To manufacture this new clean energy technologies, you need critical minerals,” Birol said during the two-day event co-hosted by the British government. “We look at where the critical minerals are produced, where they are refined and where they are manufactured, that is a huge concentration, and this is something that we think is risky.”

According to the IEA, the world’s supply of critical minerals — such as copper, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements — are currently dominated by China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Australia, Chile, Indonesia and, to a lesser extent, the US.

This concentration of raw materials, said Birol, represents a “new emerging energy security challenge”, and the reason why the Agency launched its critical minerals program.

“Currently, we are A) not able to keep up with the demand, and B) the ability of manufacturing these critical minerals is concentrated in one single country or two,” Birol said in a speech last year when announcing the program.

In response to this challenge, the IEA urged nations to focus on policies that promote the diversification of mineral sources and move away from “critical mineral monopolies.”

“Most of these critical minerals are currently controlled by just one or two countries and it is important to ensure diversity in clean energy,” Birol told reporters from Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu on Friday.

“This is not about whether a country is good or bad. If there is a technical problem or a geopolitical development in that country, entire energy supply chains could be jeopardized,” he said.

On the sidelines of the summit, Birol noted China’s dominance in the critical minerals sector and its contribution to low-cost clean energy technologies. The Asian nation is the main producer for 30 out of 50 minerals deemed critical by the US, and is the world’s top miner and processor of rare earths.

Inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange shrank by 54,858 tons, the most in data going back to 2003, to 116,753 tons, according to weekly figures released on Friday.

The sharp drawdown adds to evidence that China’s physical copper market is tightening up, with buyers also paying more to import cargoes and spot prices trading at steep premiums. Shanghai-tracked inventories more than halved in the past month amid an opportunistic buying spree that followed a pullback in prices.

“Demand from fabricators has been very good,” Wanqiu Xu, an analyst with Cofco Futures Co., said by phone. “There is no impact seen from the tariffs yet.”

The global copper market has been rocked this year by the evolving trade war — which may see Washington place tariffs on copper imports — as well as China’s efforts to sustain growth.

On Friday, China vowed to “fully prepare” emergency plans to ward against increasing external shocks, taking a patient approach in defending growth as deepening tensions with the Trump administration in the US pile pressure on the world’s No. 2 economy.

Copper prices have snapped back strongly from an initial selloff as President Donald Trump rolled out tariffs on China and other nations. London Metal Exchange contracts are up more than 15% from lows seen in early April.

The metal was trading 0.4% down at about $9,358 a ton on the LME as of 10:50 a.m. local time on Friday. Most other metals also drifted lower.

Read More: China’s surprise resilience aids copper as global risks mount

China’s aluminum production juggernaut is finally running out of road as the country’s output approaches the government’s capacity limit.

Massive investment in primary metal smelting capacity has lifted Chinese production to 43 million in 2024, or 60% of global output, from just four million metric tons in 2004.

Its growing dominance of the global aluminum supply chain has met increasing resistance from Western countries, initially in the form of trade complaints and anti-dumping duties and more recently in the form of US tariffs.

None of which has stemmed China’s exports of semi-fabricated aluminum products, which jumped by 19% to hit a record 6.2 million tons last year.

But things are about to change.

Beijing’s aluminum “Action Plan” for 2025-2027 confirms the capacity cap remains in place and sets out a strategy for what happens next.

Touching the ceiling

China’s primary aluminum production grew by 2.6% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025, according to the International Aluminium Institute.

Annualized production averaged 44 million tons over January-March, just a million tons short of the 45-million ton cap, which was set in 2017.

It is technically possible for the country’s production to exceed the cap, according to consultancy AZ Global.

Smelter capacity is rated by designed amperage for the electrolysis production process but “one of the first jobs of any plant manager is to push output to above the rate,” it says. Nudging the amperage higher allows a smelter to produce over its nameplate capacity.

But AZ China estimates that capacity utilization in China is already very high at 98.2%, leaving little room for further collective amperage creep.

It is also clear that China’s production growth is starting to slow from the average 4.0% annual rate seen over the last five years.

Going green

Chinese operators are still building new smelters, but the new capacity must be offset by closures of older capacity.

Indeed, Beijing’s policies for the sector are focused on eliminating less efficient capacity and ensuring newer smelters are powered by renewable energy resources.

Aluminum producers are migrating from coal-rich provinces to new energy hubs, such as Yunnan with its abundant hydro power and Inner Mongolia, which has massive wind and solar potential.

The aim is to produce more low-carbon metal and the action plan calls for renewable energy to account for 30% of national smelter power demand by 2027.

To offset slow to no growth in primary production, Beijing is seeking to stimulate production from scrap with a recycling target of over 15 million tons per year in 2027.

Reduced exports

Another offset has already kicked in.

The government removed tax rebate subsidies of 13% on exports of aluminum products in December in a move clearly intended to keep more metal in the domestic market.

Exports have since slowed sharply with outbound volumes down by 11% year-on-year in January and February.

Analysts at Macquarie Bank forecast exports to fall by 8% over 2025 with any sharper collapse unlikely since the world outside of China is heavily dependent on its products to the tune of around 15% of total demand.

Some Western buyers will in all likelihood at least partly accept the higher cost.

But the chances are that Chinese aluminum exports may have peaked.

Reprieve for Western producers?

The combination of slowing Chinese domestic production growth and reduced export flows opens a window of opportunity for the rest of the world’s primary aluminum producers.

The United States has nearly a million tons of idled smelting capacity. US President Donald Trump’s 25% import tariffs on aluminum are intended to stimulate restarts.

Europe too has around half of its primary smelting capacity out of action after the power price surge that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The structural changes being implemented by the world’s largest producer may offer such plants a reprieve, although restarting idled capacity is also a question of both aluminum and power prices.

There is, however, renewed interest in building greenfield smelters in the West after years of low investment.

US producer Century Aluminum has received $500 million in government funds for a project to launch the first new smelter in the United States in 45 years.

Rio Tinto is studying low-carbon smelter projects in both Finland and India.

But Chinese dominance will remain

However, Chinese producers are also going overseas due to the lack of domestic expansion potential.

Indeed, Beijing’s aluminum action plan calls for deeper cooperation with resource-rich nations such as Guinea, where China’s Chinalco is part of a project to convert the country’s bauxite resources into alumina.

In Indonesia, Shandong Nanshan Aluminium is already producing alumina and plans to expand its refining capacity and to add a 260,000-ton-per year smelter.

China may have stopped building domestic capacity but evidently has no intention of loosening its grip on a metal that the United States and the European Union both classify as a critical raw material.

(Editing by Barbara Lewis)

The order, which Trump signed in private, seeks to jumpstart the mining of both US and international waters as part of a push to offset China’s sweeping control of the critical minerals industry.

Reuters first reported last month that the order was under deliberation.

Parts of the Pacific Ocean and elsewhere are estimated to contain large amounts of potato-shaped rocks known as polymetallic nodules filled with the building blocks for electric vehicles and electronics.

More than 1 billion metric tons of those nodules are estimated to be in US waters and filled with manganese, nickel, copper and other critical minerals, according to an administration official.

Extracting them could boost US GDP by $300 billion over 10 years and create 100,000 jobs, the official added.

“The United States has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources,” Trump said in the order.

The order directs the administration to expedite mining permits under the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resource Act of 1980 and to establish a process for issuing permits along the US Outer Continental Shelf.

It also orders the expedited review of seabed mining permits “in areas beyond the national jurisdiction,” a move likely to spark friction with the international community.

The International Seabed Authority – created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the US has not ratified – has for years been considering standards for deep-sea mining in international waters, although it has yet to formalize them due to unresolved differences over acceptable levels of dust, noise and other factors from the practice.

Supporters of deep-sea mining say it would lessen the need for large mining operations on land, which are often unpopular with host communities. Environmental groups are calling for all activities to be banned, warning that industrial operations on the ocean floor could cause irreversible biodiversity loss.

“The deep ocean belongs to everyone and protecting it is humanity’s global duty. The sea floor environment is not a platform for ‘America First’ extraction,” said Emily Jeffers of the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group that opposes the practice.

Any country can allow deep-sea mining in its own territorial waters, roughly up to 200 nautical miles from shore, and companies are already lining up to mine US waters.

Impossible Metals earlier this month asked the administration to launch a commercial auction for access to deposits of nickel, cobalt and other critical minerals off the coast of American Samoa.

Shares of The Metals Company – among the most prominent of deep-sea mining companies – rose on Thursday by roughly 40% to hit a 52-week high of $3.39 per share after the Reuters report earlier in the day on the executive order.

“With a stable, transparent, and enforceable regulatory pathway available under existing US law, we look forward to delivering the world’s first commercial nodule project, responsibly and economically,” said Gerard Barron, CEO of the company, which aims to extract nodules from a vast plain of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.

Beyond The Metals Company, others eyeing deep-sea mining include California-based Impossible Metals, Russia’s JSC Yuzhmorgeologiya, Blue Minerals Jamaica, China Minmetals, and Kiribati’s Marawa Research and Exploration.

Other mining steps

US access to critical minerals – especially those produced by Chinese companies – has dwindled in recent months as Beijing has limited exports of several types. That, in turn, has ratcheted up pressure on Washington to support efforts to boost domestic mining.

Last week, Trump officials fast-tracked permitting on 10 mining projects across the United States and implemented an abbreviated approval process for mining projects on federal lands.

The administration also said it would approve one of the country’s largest copper mines.

Trump’s Thursday order uses the term “rare earths” to broadly refer to all critical minerals and is not meant to imply the administration believes the nodules contain neodymium and the 16 other rare earths, the administration official said.

(By Jarrett Renshaw and Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Daniel Wallis)

A surge in supply from the Congo, responsible for 80% of the world’s cobalt output, coupled with tepid demand from the electric vehicle market, saw cobalt sulphate entering the EV battery supply chain in China fall to an average of just $3,556 per tonne in January.  That compares to a peak of nearly $19,000 a tonne in 2022.

Copper production in the DRC, with a big chunk owned by Chinese companies, was rising fast – leading to a near 40% jump in the country’s co-product cobalt output in 2024, but in February the country announced a four month ban on exports to ease the glut. 

Cobalt sulphate prices duly responded, jumping more than 60% in March to average $5,767 a tonne, and holding onto most of those gains in April.   

Cobalt byproduct output is also increasing in Indonesia as its nickel shipments ballooned and the DRC is now in talks with the Asian nation to collaborate on managing supply of cobalt including the use of quotas. 

Cobalt consumption in EV batteries overtook other sources of demand like aerospace several years ago and the impact of the DRC strategy has been swift.  

The latest data from Adamas Intelligence tracking EV battery metal deployment in over 120 countries paired with monthly prices shows the cobalt market springing back into life. 

The estimated size of the battery cobalt market shot up in March to an overall $152.4 million, up 120% over February and the highest since December 2022, lifting the value of sales weighted average cobalt contained in tandem. 

While March was a good month across the board for the EV industry and by extension battery metal deployment, and January and February are generally quiet months for passenger vehicle sales, cobalt vastly outperformed other battery metals. 

Nickel rose by a more subdued 41%, also amid rising prices, while the value of battery lithium deployment increased by 28% month over month, relying on rising EV sales in Asia more than prices, which are still bobbing along near the bottom of the cycle.  

And while price can make all the difference for suppliers to the EV battery market, longer term trends for cobalt (and its ternary cathode cousins) in the EV market are less encouraging. 

Lithium iron phosphate or LFP batteries continue to rapidly take market share from NCM (nickel-cobalt-manganese) and NCA (nickel-cobalt-aluminum) cathode chemistries. 

The China-fueled rise of LFP has fostered a large divergence in global consumption growth rates of key battery metals, according to Adamas Intelligence data.

For example, in calendar 2024 iron and phosphorous deployment were up by 54% and 49%, respectively, for a combined 399.1 kilotonnes contained in the batteries of sold EVs over the course of the year.

In contrast, global nickel deployment into EV batteries increased 11% to 322.7 kt while that of manganese rose 10% to 73.6 kt and cobalt 7% to 59.6 kt as the industry continues to thrift the metal.  Keeping in mind that the installed tonnage does not take into account any losses during processing, chemical conversion or battery production scrap (often well into double digit percentages) so required tonnes are meaningfully higher at the mine mouth. 

In total, installed tonnage of nickel, cobalt and manganese last year represented 21% of the battery metal basket.  

That’s down from a 24% share in 2023 and 36% in 2020 when top EV maker BYD shifted to an all-LFP line-up, and LFP-powered Tesla Model 3s re-ignited uptake of the Ni-Co-Mn-free battery chemistry. 

The world’s largest EV battery maker CATL, responsible for 30% of total battery capacity deployed globally in GWh terms, in April announced that commercial production of sodium-ion packs will begin before the end of 2025. Due to its inherent limitations, sodium-ion is more likely to eat into LFP’s market than NCM’s.

At least there’s that.    

For a fuller analysis of the EV battery metals market check out the May issue of The Northern Miner print and digital editions.

* Frik Els is Editor at Large for MINING.COM and Head of Adamas Inside, providing news and analysis based on Adamas Intelligence data.

Nations within the Chinese sphere process 53.1% of the world’s copper, far surpassing the American-aligned bloc at 15.6% and the “Coalition of the Willing” at 19%.

Russia, grouped separately, accounts for 5.6% of global capacity, while 6.8% of copper processing remains in “Undrafted” countries not formally aligned with any major power bloc, such as Iran and India.

Analysts warn that while access to raw materials is crucial, the ability to process them may ultimately determine strategic advantage in the race for technological and industrial dominance.

Explore the full infographic:

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RELATED: RANKED: World’s biggest copper mines

The group also forecast global primary nickel usage at 3.537 million tons this year and global primary nickel production at 3.735 million tons.

The market balance in 2023 was a surplus of 170,000 tons, rising to 179,000 tons in 2024, the Lisbon-based group said.

World primary nickel production was 3.363 million tons in 2023 and 3.526 million tons in 2024, with primary usage at 3.193 million tons and 3.347 million tons respectively.

In Indonesia, delays to issuance of mining permits (RKABs) resulted in ore tightness in the nickel market, the report said, adding that the effect of the country’s new royalties on the mining sector has yet to be assessed fully.

Primary nickel output in China is also forecast to increase, driven by additional nickel cathode and nickel sulphate production, the report said.

Prices for nickel, used in stainless steel and electric vehicle batteries, fell by more than 7% in 2024 and is up about 3% so far this year.

(By Anjana Anil and Ashitha Shivaprasad; Editing by David Goodman)

Under the partnership, Codelco will hold a majority stake — 50% plus one share — aligning with President Gabriel Boric’s push to increase state control over the production of lithium, a key component in electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

The green light from Chile’s Fiscalía Nacional Económica (FNE) follows approvals from regulators in the European Union, Brazil, Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. A decision from Chinese authorities is still pending.

“This is an important milestone. The regulator examined the transaction over nine months with the necessary scrutiny,” Codelco chairman Maximo Pacheco said in the statement.

He noted that discussions with local Indigenous communities are progressing and that final approval from Chile’s nuclear energy commission (CCHEN) is expected later this year.

The joint venture has met opposition from some Chilean lawmakers and legal challenges from Tianqi, a major Chinese stakeholder in SQM.

“The copper market remains in a tight balance, despite macro-economic difficulties,” Xiao Qianjun, vice general manager of trade business at Jiangxi Copper Co., a top smelter, told an industry conference this week. After prices fell recently, “spot orders from fabricators exploded,” Xiao said.

The global copper market — along with other leading industrial commodities — has been in turmoil in the opening months of 2025, with prices plunging briefly toward $8,000 a ton earlier in April. The picture for the metal used in pipes, wiring and batteries is especially complicated as while broad trade tariffs may crimp growth and hurt consumption, the Trump administration has also mooted a levy on imports, draining supplies from elsewhere and aiding US prices.

At the same time, there’s speculation that Beijing may ramp up stimulus to support the world’s second-largest economy and counter the more challenging overseas conditions as US President Donald Trump imposes punishing tariffs, while also holding out the promise of talks and a deal.

Reflecting the tough outlook, banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have pruned forecasts for copper, a metal widely traded as a proxy for global growth. It now sees a surplus, and monthly average low of $8,300 a ton in the third quarter. Futures were last at $9,424 a ton in London.

In China — where conditions typically help to shape prices given the nation’s central role in demand, as well as refined-metal production — buyers’ appetite remains intact, especially when prices have pulled back.

“Demand in spot the market — from surveys of downstream users or apparent consumption — are all very good,” Angela Bi, head of Asian metals and mineral research at Mercuria Energy Group Ltd., said at the conference, held by Shanghai Metals Market in Nanchang, Jiangxi. Indicators “are too good to be true,” Bi added.

Against that backdrop, traders have also been encouraged by local pointers. Inventories monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange sank by the most since 2023 earlier this month after prices fell, suggesting a pick-up in demand.

Elsewhere, the Yangshan premium — a gauge of import demand — recently hit the highest since 2023. And local yuan-priced futures are steeply backwardated, a bullish pattern that points to near-term tightness.

Shifts in the scrap market are also in focus given Beijing’s retaliatory levies against US shipments, which threaten to depress flows. In China, supplies of second-hand metal have tightened, curbing feedstock flows to smelters

“Imported copper scrap stockpiles in China have dropped significantly,” said Bi.

Read More: Tongling Metals warns US tariffs to drag short-term copper outlook

The proposed funding — structured as debt over a 15-year indicative term — comes through EXIM’s China and Transformational Exports Program (CTEP), a strategic initiative aimed at strengthening US supply chain security by supporting critical mineral projects that reduce dependency on China.

Though non-binding, the offer could pave the way for Victory Metals to access additional US government financing under CTEP.

“This is a major milestone for Victory and a clear signal of the strategic importance of our project not only to Australia but to our allies abroad,” Victory Metals chief executive Brendan Clark said. 

The US move follows Japan’s Sumitomo taking interest in the North Stanmore deposit, underscoring growing international attention on the project, which lies outside the gold mining hub of Cue in Western Australia.

Victory Metals expects the support will boost its leverage in talks with downstream partners, original equipment manufacturers, and defence-aligned industries pursuing alternative supply chains.

North Stanmore hosts valuable heavy rare earth elements, along with scandium and hafnium—materials increasingly essential to clean energy, aerospace and defence technologies.

The offer comes amid the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing. A recent executive order by US President Donald Trump called for an investigation into the country’s dependence on imported processed critical minerals — primarily from China. In parallel, Beijing has imposed export controls on several rare earth elements, including scandium, dysprosium and terbium, which are vital to defence, nuclear power, medicine, and electronics.

Overseas sales of the raw material for smelting aluminum more than doubled from a year earlier to 300,000 tons, according to the latest Chinese customs data. That figure was exceeded only in October 2018, when a refinery curtailment in Brazil and US sanctions on United Co. Rusal International squeezed the global market.

China’s alumina market has been on a roller-coaster of late. Prices nearly doubled last year before crashing as a wave of new capacity was brought online, forcing the industry to seek foreign buyers.

Unlike other Chinese metals, including steel and aluminum, that have drawn scrutiny from trading partners after the country’s exports swamped world markets, alumina sales are contained to only a few main buyers.

Russia remains the biggest destination as its aluminum producers continue to grapple with a shortage of feedstock since the invasion of Ukraine. The country accounted for 48% of China’s exports last month. Rusal, its biggest aluminum maker, signed a landmark deal in 2023 with a Chinese plant specifically to plug the gap in supply.

Indonesia, which hosts Chinese smelters, and the United Arab Emirates took 19% and 23%, respectively.

Traders shipped extra alumina overseas after a plunge in domestic prices widened the window for arbitrage, said Zhang Meng, an analyst with consultancy AZ China Ltd. Volumes are likely to remain elevated at between 150,000 and 200,000 tons in coming months, he said.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, is trying to tackle the surplus by curbing excessive investment, including a ban on new plants in heavily polluted areas. The directive mirrors similar guidance on raw materials given to China’s copper smelters, another industry contending with chronic overcapacity.

The China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association last week criticized elements of the alumina sector’s blind expansion. The industry body said China has about 15 million tons of capacity under construction, and more than 20 million tons at the planning stage. Those expansions would significantly add to China’s existing 107 million tons of annual capacity.

Read More: China’s export controls are curbing critical mineral shipments to the world

Recent US tariff policies “directly impacted the global market, increasing concerns about the curbing of global economic growth,” it said in an exchange filing. “Copper demand will also see a sharp decline in demand if global trade weakness and an expected slowdown in economic growth lead to lower industrial demand.”

The Chinese copper producer’s net income rose to 2.8 billion yuan ($383 million) in 2024 from 2.7 billion yuan the year before, helped by higher copper prices and solid electrification demand. Going forward, it still sees energy transformation and artificial intelligence development driving demand for the metal.

The global copper market faces significant challenges from global tariff uncertainty and competition. Tongling earlier cut run rates and brought forward planned maintenance as a plunge in processing fees and competition forced producers to scale back some operations.

Processing fees have been collapsing as local smelters have added capacity in recent years. Still, Chinese copper smelters boosted output to a record last month, as rising prices for by-products including gold and sulphuric acid eased pressure on margins.

(By Rachel Yeo)

Read More: China copper output jumps to record despite low smelting fees

The report said China’s commerce ministry delivered the message in letters to Korean companies which make power transformers, batteries, displays, electric vehicles, aerospace and medical equipment, all of which use the key materials.

The letters said Korean companies could face sanctions if they violate the export restrictions, the report said.

South Korea’s Industry Ministry was not immediately available for comments outside business hours.

Early this month, China placed export restrictions on rare earth elements as part of its sweeping response to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, squeezing supply to the West of minerals used to make weapons, electronics and a range of consumer goods.

(By Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Two weeks into the second quarter, the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners had a combined market capitalization of $1.36 trillion, up $79.7 billion so far in 2025.

The total stock market valuation of the world’s biggest mining companies remains almost $400 billion below the peak hit in the second quarter of 2022.

This snapshot was taken at the close of trading on 17 April and not at the start of Q2 as usual to avoid some of the market distortions brought on by the chaotic weeks following Trump’s on-again off-again tariffs.

This flatters the index to some extent as gold stocks rode the coattails of the record setting bullion price and almost all big names regained some ground after the severe sell-off during the first week of April.

Newcomers

The volatile trading saw the greatest number of new entries – six in all – in a quarter since MINING.COM started tracking the Top 50 six years ago. From $6.7 billion at the end of 2024, the lowest ranked entry must now be worth $8 billion.

Mining and metals arguably suffered some of the biggest swings and roundabouts as the economic effects of a trade war and the focus on critical minerals played havoc – exemplified by the volatility on copper markets.

The bellwether metal hit a record high in the US at the end of March, only to plunge more than 20% over the next week and a half and then make up a big chunk of those losses going into the long weekend.

Amid the hectic trading, copper producers and diversified companies with large base metal portfolios lost a combined $53 billion to April 17 and are now trading $205 billion below their collective peak end-Sep 2024 as the sector’s ranks thin.

Lundin Mining dropped out of the Top 50 during Q1 following another copper counter, Poland’s KGHM, which did not make the cut off in Q4 last year. Q1 was a mixed blessing for the Canadian mining empire with the copper producer making way for Lundin Gold, entering the Top 50 for the first time after doubling in value in USD terms to $10.1 billion in Toronto.

Huayou Cobalt’s inclusion proved to be short-lived while South32 failed to make the cut for the first time since being spun out of BHP a decade ago. The base metals sans copper producer sits at position 51 after being narrowly edged out by Shanjin International Gold, so the stock may well return if (and not necessarily when) profit-taking in gold and gold stocks starts to make sense.

Another notable mover of 2025 is Amman Mineral, the worst performer in the index which lost over $10 billion in value as reality about its piercing run since its debut in Jakarta early 2023 continues to set in. The Indonesian copper-gold company is now worth an eye-catching $20 billion less than its high point at the end of Q2 last year, even after investors ran up the stock more than 20% just in the last week.

Nothing counters gold

While the direction of the copper price over the last few months was almost impossible to judge, gold’s record breaking run looked inevitable. At $3,420 per ounce gold at the time of writing, the yellow metal has now finally also surpassed its 1980 peak in inflation-adjusted terms.

Unsurprisingly, precious metals counters dominate the best performer list and make up the majority of new entrants. Gold, silver and PGM miners and royalty companies now represent a third of the value of the Top 50. The strength in precious metals has also seen Canada overtake Australia for the first time in terms of the value of miners headquartered there.

At 22% of the index, the 13 Canadian companies collectively are worth a smidgen under $300 billion compared to $275 billion for the now eight Australian firms with the inclusion for the first time of Sydney-based gold stock Evolution Mining. In their current form Melbourne-based BHP and Rio Tinto have been the top two global mining stocks since the turn of the century, together worth $220 billion today.

The MINING.COM Top 50 tracks stock value in USD terms not share price gains on local exchange and many stocks in the ranking benefitted from strengthening currencies against the USD.

South Africa’s Harmony Gold tops the gainers after jumping 24 spots to enter the ranking at no 37 following a 117% advance since end-2024. Like Harmony, Goldfields also benefited from the strong rand against the greenback, lifting the Johannesburg-based company’s shares by 83% year to date.

Russia’s Polyus, which added $14.4 billion in Q1, was only beaten by the top two gold stocks Newmont and Agnico Eagle which added $18.6 billion and $19.9 billion year to date in market cap gains. The ruble has strengthened by 20% against the US dollar in 2025 and Norilsk Nickel, thanks to captive investors on the MCX, has maintained its good standing in the Top 50 despite sanctions and trading restrictions. Norilsk is still worth north of $20 billion but still a far cry from its peak position as the world’s number 5 most valuable mining company reached mid-2021.

London-listed Fresnillo returns to the index after years in the wilderness thanks to a 74% surge in value for the Mexican silver and gold miner, majority owned by Mexican industrial group Peñoles. Together with Southern Copper, owned by Grupo Mexico, the country now represents nearly 6% of the value of the Top 50.

Gold counters are likely to only increase in number and size over the rest of 2025. Kazatomprom dual-listed in London and Astana in 2018, and Uzbekistan is now readying an IPO for Navoi Mining and Metallurgy Combinat – the world’s fourth largest gold mining company and significant uranium producer later this year.

Rare earth representation

China Northern Rare Earth is the only producer of the 17 elements in the ranking and despite the frenzy surrounding the sector as China tightens control. There are no obvious REE candidates that could join the Top 50 in short order.

MP Materials, which operates the Mountain Pass mine in California, has surged by 69% in value year to date but the Las Vegas-based company is still worth only $4.3 billion.

The company’s valuation peaked above $8 billion in March 2022, but the whole mining industry was riding high at the time and the high price ticket for entry at the time meant it fell just outside the ranking. Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths have also come close in the past and is up 26% this year for a valuation of $5.3 billion.

Lithium down to a single stock

Lithium’s representation in the ranking is down from six companies to a single stock – Chile’s SQM languishing in position 42 and worth less than $10 billion – following the exit of China’s Tianqi and US-based Albemarle during the quarter, with the latter dropping by 38% in 2025.

The value destruction caused by the slump in lithium prices has been nothing short of astonishing. Lithium stocks in the index peaked in the second quarter of 2022 with a combined value of nearly $120 billion.

While Albemarle now worth $6.2 billion may well make a comeback (the longer term prospects for lithium demand remains bright), the absorption of Arcadium by Rio Tinto makes it unlikely that the Top 50 will see a rush of lithium stocks any time soon, a rebound of the commodity notwithstanding.

Zangge Mining, which does derive a good proportion of income from lithium, but is mostly a fertilizer producer, is bubbling under at number 53. The Chinese company may not stick around either – it’s the subject of takeover overtures by Zijing Mining, which also helps explain the 25% rise in the stock on the Shenzen exchange in USD terms.

Notes:

Source: MINING.COM, stock exchange data, company reports. Share data from primary-listed exchange at close April 17/18, 2025 close of trading converted to US$ where applicable. Percentage change based on US$ market cap difference, not share price change in local currency.

As with any ranking, criteria for inclusion are contentious. We decided to exclude unlisted and state-owned enterprises at the outset due to a lack of information. That, of course, excludes giants like Chile’s Codelco, Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining (the gold and uranium giant may list later this year), Eurochem, a major potash firm, and a number of entities in China and developing countries around the world.

Another central criterion was the depth of involvement in the industry, and how far upstream is the bulk of its revenue, before an enterprise can rightfully be called a mining company.

For instance, should smelter companies or commodity traders that own minority stakes in mining assets be included, especially if these investments have no operational component or even warrant a seat on the board?

This is a common structure in Asia and excluding these types of companies removed well-known names like Japan’s Marubeni and Mitsui, Korea Zinc and Chile’s Copec.

Levels of operational or strategic involvement and size of shareholding were other central considerations. Do streaming and royalty companies that receive metals from mining operations without shareholding qualify or are they just specialized financing vehicles? We included Franco Nevada, Royal Gold and Wheaton Precious Metals on the basis of their deep involvement in the industry.

Vertically integrated concerns like Alcoa and energy companies such as Shenhua Energy or Bayan Resources where power, ports and railways make up a large portion of revenues pose a problem. The revenue mix also tends to change alongside volatile coal prices. Same goes for battery makers like China’s CATL which is increasingly moving upstream, but where mining will continue to represent a small portion of its valuation.

Another consideration is diversified companies such as Anglo American with separately listed majority-owned subsidiaries. We’ve included Angloplat in the ranking but excluded Kumba Iron Ore in which Anglo has a 70% stake to avoid double counting. Similarly we excluded Hindustan Zinc which is listed separately but majority owned by Vedanta.

With other groups like Mexico’s Penoles where refining and chemicals make up a substantial part of the business where possible the Top 50 would include separately listed operating subsidiaries that are dedicated to mining. This is also why Southern Copper represents Grupo Mexico in the ranking.

Many steelmakers own and often operate iron ore and other metal mines, but in the interest of balance and diversity we excluded the steel industry, and with that many companies that have substantial mining assets including giants like ArcelorMittal, Magnitogorsk, Ternium, Baosteel and many others.

Head office refers to operational headquarters wherever applicable, for example BHP and Rio Tinto are shown as Melbourne, Australia, but Antofagasta is the exception that proves the rule. We consider the company’s HQ to be in London, where it has been listed since the late 1800s.

Please let us know of any errors, omissions, deletions or additions to the ranking or suggest a different methodology: email Frik Els at fels@mining.com with Top 50 in the subject line.