Commodities have had a rough decade, but a confluence of structural factors suggests that after years of underinvestment, the stage may be set for the next super cycle…Commodities super cycles are long, powerful waves driven by major thematic shifts. The 1970s super cycle saw a mix of geopolitical supply shocks and loose monetary policy. The early 2000s super cycle was defined by China's historic urbanisation boom…Today, there are structural factors on both the supply and demand sides of the commodities equation that could catalyze the next boom…First, critical resources and the capacity to process them are highly concentrated in just a few jurisdictions…Compounding this is a simple geological reality: the easy, high-grade deposits have likely already been found…Years of underinvestment, partly due to shareholder pressure on miners to prioritise dividends over growth, have starved the pipeline of future supply…The global push for electrification and decarbonisation is profoundly metal-intensive…Meanwhile, massive, cash-rich technology companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars annually in capital expenditures to build out artificial intelligence data centres and related power projects…For these firms, securing the necessary energy and materials to win the Al race is an existential imperative, making their demand resilient…Finally, the financial winds seem to be shifting in commodities' favor…At the same time, investors may need to find a new asset class to reduce portfolio volatility…Yet, despite this potential, investment mandates that allow for direct investments in commodities, let alone dedicated commodity investment mandates, remain a rarity in most institutional portfolios. Many in the investment communities have taken the poor price performance of commodities over the recent decade to be indicative of the future trajectory…This backward-looking mentality could potentially stem the flow of capital into this area…While properly timing such booms is very challenging, one can note when the underlying conditions for a super cycle appear to be falling into place – and we could be seeing that now.

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, extending it again in June…The price of cobalt sulphate entering the EV battery supply chain in China duly responded and is now trading over 90% higher than at the start of the year averaging $6,947 a tonne in August (still nowhere near the 2022 peak of $19,000 per tonne)…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…In total, installed tonnage of nickel, cobalt and manganese now represent more than half the value of the battery metal basket that came to $1.28 billion in August…The value of terminal nickel, cobalt and manganese tonnes deployed in EVs, including plug-in and conventional hybrids, sold around the world from January through August this year totalled $4.93 billion. 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 and revenues are meaningfully higher at the mine mouth…The US Defense Department is not waiting for that eventuality, however, and has issued a tender (the first time since 1990) for the supply of 7,500 tonnes over five years.

Ukraine and the US International Development Finance Corporation will each commit $75 million to a joint investment fund that is part of Kyiv’s minerals deal with Washington first signed in April, officials said on Wednesday… “The US Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has made a pilot commitment of $75 million, which Ukraine will match,” Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in a statement…DFC said the investment would support Ukraine’s reconstruction and economic recovery and strengthen US natural resource supply chains. Svyrydenko said the initial focus would be on projects in energy, infrastructure and critical minerals…Half of the revenue Ukraine earns from new mineral extraction under the deal would go to the fund, with profits split between Kyiv and Washington…DFC’s team was in Ukraine this month, scouting for projects. The delegation was in the central Kirovohrad region, visiting sites with deposits of titanium and zirconium ore, Sobolev said…Ukraine has deposits of 22 of the 34 minerals considered critical by the EU for industries such as defence, high-tech appliances and green energy. It also possesses ferro alloys needed by the steel industry, non-ferrous metals used in construction, and some rare earth elements.

Panasonic aims to develop a new type of higher-capacity battery in about two years, potentially extending the driving range of electric vehicles in a groundbreaking advance for the Tesla supplier. The Japanese company is working on eliminating the anode in batteries during the manufacturing stage to increase energy density through technology it says is likely to provide a "world-leading level" of capacity by the end of 2027…If achieved, the improvement would lead to a 25% increase in battery capacity, Panasonic said. That would boost the driving range of Tesla’s most affordable sport-utility vehicle, the Model Y, by almost 90 miles (about 145 km), at current battery pack size…Panasonic's proposed design has no anode at the manufacturing stage. Instead, a lithium metal anode is formed in the battery after being charged for the first time. This would free up room for more active cathode materials — nickel, cobalt and aluminium — to boost capacity without changing the volume.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is weighing up an extension of its cobalt export ban by at least two months, as officials work to finalise a quota system aimed at replacing the suspension, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters…The Mines Ministry arrived at the decision citing a need for further recovery in the cobalt price and more time to implement a quota-based framework, a senior official at the ministry said…The ban was introduced to curb oversupply after prices of the key electric battery metal fell to a nine-year low of around $10 per pound. Cobalt prices on COMEX were last at $16 per lb, having risen 60% since late February…The proposed quota system has support from Glencore, the world’s second-largest cobalt producer, but faces resistance from China’s CMOC Group the top producer, which has lobbied for the ban to be lifted.

Congo's army and Rwandan-backed rebels are reinforcing military positions and blaming each other for flouting peace accords in an escalation that experts say risks reigniting the simmering conflict, which U.S. President Donald Trump claims to have ended. The M23 rebels seized two major cities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in January and February, posing the biggest threat to the government in Kinshasa in two decades. The offensive raised fears of a return to regional war as neighbouring armies took sides… Both sides are now dispatching hundreds of men to multiple frontline towns in Congo's eastern provinces bordering Rwanda and Burundi, where violence continues unabated while the talks rumble on, according to the Congolese government and rebel officials…The U.N. and human rights groups have documented hundreds of summary killings, as well as torture and rape committed by both sides since preliminary peace agreements were signed, first in Washington and then in Doha…Trump has said U.S. companies eyeing a slice of Congo's mineral wealth would invest billions of dollars if the fighting ends…That would require solving a conflict that has its roots in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which triggered a series of wars in Congo that have killed, maimed and displaced millions of people, according to the U.N…After the genocide, in which about 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed, the remnants of the defeated Hutu militia fled to Congo, forming a group known as the FDLR. Since then, the FDLR has preyed on civilians and taken part in Congo's various on-off wars, at times allied with the government in the capital Kinshasa. The M23 rebels are the latest uprising that emerged to protect Congo's Tutsi. Rwanda denies backing the rebels but says it will do anything needed to defend itself from the FDLR.