As China built up its cities, according to government data, the country consumed twice as much of the metal in the two decades from 2000 to 2020 as the US did during the entire 20th century. This massive industrialisation and urbanisation, at a pace the world had never seen before, drove a huge commodities supercycle…But that supercycle, which started to wane during the Covid-19 pandemic, has now finally come to an end. Last year China’s steel production fell to a four-year low, and is expected to shrink again this year…Steele Li, vice-chair of mining company CMOC, says that the real estate boom that drove the Chinese economy has ended. “That engine is over, and I don’t think it will come back, ever. So China’s economy needs to find a new engine, with similar size,” says Li…Within the industry, some executives are hopeful that the end of the China boom is coinciding with the start of a new cycle. Huge investments in clean energy, in China and around the world, have laid the foundation for another, very different kind of commodities boom. This next phase will require lots of copper for building out electricity grids, data centres, and renewable power — as well as metals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel for electric vehicle batteries…“We are between supercycles,” says Peter Toth, chief strategy officer at Newmont, a US-listed gold miner, who previously worked at BHP and Rio Tinto. “We are coming out of the China supercycle and we are still on the edge of the next supercycle, which will be driven by electrification, the energy transition and artificial intelligence.” However, if there is a new boom in commodities, it will take place in a very different global economy — one that is being shaped by competition between Beijing and Washington…The demand in the next cycle, however, is more spread out geographically, with dozens of countries vying for the raw materials to build out their own renewable energy and electricity infrastructure. That dynamic means competition over scarce resources will play a much greater role. Already western countries are racing to build their own supply chains, outside of Chinese control, for critical materials such as cobalt, lithium and copper…The political tensions around the new boom in commodities could become even sharper in Donald Trump’s new term…Last year BHP launched a £39bn bid for Anglo American, primarily to get access to its copper assets. And Rio Tinto splashed out nearly $7bn to scoop up a lithium company, Arcadium, to tap into demand for electric vehicle batteries. As the energy transition requires more electrical cables, more electric vehicles, and more solar and wind farms, the resulting surge in demand will be huge…The new cycle does not revolve around China, but the country is still one of the driving forces. China remains the world’s largest buyer of many raw materials — and will be the world’s biggest steel producer for decades to come. Its dominance in battery materials is even greater: it controls two-thirds of global lithium and cobalt processing. China has so much power, because they have consolidated all the downstream production of these metals...The critical minerals needed for the energy transition are often more niche than the commodities that drove the real estate boom, and lower value in terms of market size…“There is this collision between the upcoming critical minerals boom and heightened geopolitical tension in almost every part of the world,” says Thijs Van de Graaf, energy fellow at the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics. Van de Graaf adds that Trump’s recent comments on Greenland and Canada have big implications for critical minerals.

The energy minister of Saudi Arabia – the Gulf kingdom whose wealth and power rests disproportionately on its vast petroleum reserves – believes that oil is no longer an energy security challenge…Instead, he said, the coming battle will be for entirely different materials buried under the ground: critical minerals…“Oil is no longer an energy security challenge – it’s going to be gas, electricity, predominantly minerals,” Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman told attendees at the annual Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh…The energy minister was referring to minerals critical to the energy transition and advanced technologies – including lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, manganese and other rare earth elements crucial for making things like electric vehicles, batteries, renewable energy technology, computers, and household goods…Electricity demand around the world is surging, fueled by the rising demand for data centers required to power AI, factories, electric vehicles, and hotter and longer summers. A recent energy department memo cited in numerous press reports projected that U.S. power grids could see as much as 25 gigawatts of new data center demand by 2030…Critical minerals and rare earth metals are also essential for renewable technology like solar panels and wind turbines, which are central to many countries’ efforts toward an energy transition away from fossil fuels….Saudi Arabia on Wednesday announced it is working on a $100 billion mining investment as it aims to become a global hub for both mining and minerals extraction and processing. The kingdom plans to significantly expand its exploration for lithium within its own borders, as well as for other critical minerals.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, the world's top cobalt supplier, is courting new mining investors from Saudi Arabia to help it diversify and curb overreliance on companies from China, Marcellin Paluku, a senior government official, told Reuters…Congo, which is also rich in copper and other critical minerals, wants more partnerships with the new investors to limit the risk of relying solely on Chinese investors, Paluku, who is a deputy cabinet director in the ministry of mines, said…Chinese companies, some of which are state-backed, have over the past years emerged as the biggest investors in Congo, ramping up investment and production for copper and cobalt…CMOC Group is now the world's biggest cobalt miner as it boosts output at Tenke Fungurume Mine it bought from U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan in 2016…"Today, 80% of our mines, it's with one partner (China). So it's a risk," Paluku told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a mining conference in Riyadh.

Chinese officials and automakers are eyeing German factories slated for closure and are particularly interested in Volkswagen's sites, a person with knowledge of Chinese government thinking told Reuters…Buying a factory would allow China to build influence in Germany's prized auto industry, home to some of the oldest and most prestigious car brands, the person said…Chinese companies have invested across a range of industries in Europe's biggest economy, from telecommunications to robotics, but have yet to set up traditional car manufacturing there despite Mercedes-Benz having two large Chinese shareholders…Any such move could mark China's most politically sensitive investment yet. VW has long been a symbol of Germany's industrial prowess, now threatened by a global economic slowdown hitting demand and creaking transition to green technologies…Building cars in Germany for sale in Europe would allow China's EV makers to avoid paying EU tariffs on electric cars imported from China and could pose a further threat to European manufacturers' competitiveness…Volkswagen is exploring alternative uses for its Dresden and Osnabrueck factories under a cost-cutting drive to pare back its German operations. Europe's biggest automaker, which owns brands including Porsche, Audi and Skoda, has suffered a fall in sales in the face of rising competition from Chinese companies…Asked about the person's comments, China's chamber of commerce in Berlin confirmed that Chinese investors were strongly interested in Germany's car sector, viewing it as a strategically important long-term investment prospect…Many Chinese carmakers believe that winning over Germany's demanding consumers is a key marker of success, they added…Many Chinese carmakers are scouting locations for plants in Europe, the world's second-largest EV market, to circumvent tariffs imposed by the European Commission last year to counter what it said were unfair subsidies in China…Most have so far opted to build new factories in lower-cost countries with weaker trade unions, such as BYD in Hungary and Turkey. Leapmotor is planning production with Stellantis in Poland and Chery Auto will start making EVs this year at a plant formerly owned by Nissan in Spain.

Alaska and Northern Canada are rich in the minerals and metals essential for clean energy, high tech, and military readiness but are poor in the infrastructure needed to unlock these critical minerals….Northwest Territories, Yukon's neighbor to the east, is rapidly emerging as a potentially significant global supplier of minerals critical to North America's clean energy and high-tech sectors….In addition to the tungsten deposits that span its eastern border, Northwest Territories host large deposits of lithium, cobalt, bismuth, and rare earths, as well as significant occurrences of roughly two dozen other minerals critical to Canada and the U.S…."The NWT is home to some of the world's most significant untapped reserves of critical minerals, such as rare earth elements, lithium, and cobalt – resources vital to the global transition to clean energy," said Simpson…Arguably, the most advanced critical minerals asset in Northwest Territories is Fortune Minerals Ltd.'s NICO cobalt-bismuth-copper-gold project about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of Yellowknife…Lying just 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of the newly built Tlicho Highway, NICO hosts 33.1 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves containing 82.3 million lb of cobalt, 102.1 million lb of bismuth, 27.2 million lb of copper, and 1.11 million oz of gold…Previous studies have detailed plans for a mine at NICO and a refinery in neighboring Alberta capable of producing 1,800 metric tons of battery-grade cobalt sulfate, 1,700 metric tons of bismuth, 300 metric tons of copper, and 47,000 oz of gold annually over the first 14 years of mining…This intriguing mix of cobalt for lithium-ion batteries, bismuth used in various automotive and metallurgical applications, copper for the energy transition, and gold to help improve the economics of producing the critical metals has captured the attention of both Ottawa and Washington, DC….In May, DOD and NRCan awarded Fortune a combined C$16.2 million (US$12 million) to support the development of the planned NICO mine and refinery…"As a planned vertically integrated development, the NICO project covers the entire mineral production process from mining and concentrating ores to refining metals to final cobalt sulfate and bismuth ingot products with copper and gold co-products," DOD penned in an announcement on its funding of the project…Fortune is using the funds to update and expand upon a nearly decade-old feasibility study for NICO.