u/The-Oregon-Group

Our reaction to the news of Sherritt exiting Cuba and possible nickel marker implications.

Copper doesn’t get the same attention as lithium or uranium, but it arguably matters more than both. It’s one of the few materials that shows up everywhere—power, construction, transportation, and increasingly, the backbone of the energy transition.

Where does copper come from?

Copper production is surprisingly concentrated.

The biggest producers today:

• Chile (by far the largest)
• Peru
• Democratic Republic of Congo (growing fast)
• China (more refining than mining)
• United States
• Australia

A few things stand out:

• Chile and Peru alone account for a huge portion of global supply
• Political risk, water shortages, and permitting issues are slowing new projects
• Ore grades have been declining for decades (you have to move more rock for the same copper)

On top of that, refining is heavily influenced by China, which adds another layer of geopolitical complexity.

What is copper actually used for?

Copper is essentially the best large-scale conductor we have that’s also affordable and durable.

Major uses:

• Electrical wiring & power grids (homes, cities, infrastructure)
• Renewable energy (wind turbines, solar farms)
• Electric vehicles (EVs use ~2–4x more copper than internal combustion cars)
• Data centers & AI infrastructure
• Construction & plumbing
• Industrial machinery

If electricity is moving, copper is usually involved.

Why is copper so important right now?

This is where it gets interesting.

We’re trying to electrify everything:

• cars → EVs
• heating → electric
• industry → electrification
• grid → expanded and modernized

All of that requires massive amounts of copper.

At the same time:

• New mines take 10–15+ years to permit and build
• Existing mines are aging and declining in quality
• ESG and local opposition are slowing development

So you get a simple but powerful setup:

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The bigger picture

Copper is often called “the metal with a PhD in economics” because it reflects global growth. But now it’s more than that—it’s becoming a strategic material.

If you believe in:

• AI buildout
• grid expansion
• electrification
• energy transition

Then copper isn’t optional—it’s foundational.

Open question:

Do we actually have enough copper supply coming online to meet demand over the next decade, or are we setting up for a structural shortage?

Each announcement it all keeps getting bigger and bigger

Never know what will be the thing to kick it all off...

Tantalum is one of the lesser-known critical minerals, but it plays a major role in modern electronics, aerospace, energy systems, and defense technology.

The metal is highly heat resistant, extremely corrosion resistant, and an excellent conductor of electricity. Those properties make it uniquely valuable in high-performance applications where reliability matters.

What is tantalum used for?

• Capacitors in smartphones, laptops, servers, gaming systems, and AI infrastructure
• Aerospace and jet engine components
• Medical implants and surgical devices because the metal is biocompatible
• Chemical processing equipment due to its corrosion resistance
• Advanced military and defense systems
• Superalloys used in turbines and high-temperature environments

One of tantalum’s biggest uses is in electronic capacitors. Tantalum capacitors are small, efficient, and reliable — which is why they are widely used in compact electronics.

Where does tantalum come from?

Tantalum is usually produced from minerals called columbite-tantalite, often referred to as “coltan.”

Major mining regions include:

• Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
• Rwanda
• Brazil
• Nigeria
• Australia
• Mozambique
• Ethiopia

Central Africa has historically dominated portions of global supply, which is why tantalum has sometimes been associated with “conflict minerals” discussions and supply chain transparency concerns.

Where is tantalum refined?

China currently dominates much of the downstream processing and refining capacity.

Other countries involved in refining or advanced materials production include:

• Germany
• Japan
• United States
• Kazakhstan
• Estonia

Like many critical minerals, the supply chain is highly concentrated — especially at the processing stage.

Why does tantalum matter now?

As the world builds more advanced electronics, AI infrastructure, aerospace systems, and energy technology, demand for specialty metals continues to rise.

Tantalum rarely gets the attention of copper, lithium, or rare earths, but it remains one of the essential “small volume, high importance” metals that quietly power modern technology.

It’s another reminder that the energy transition and AI buildout are not just about one or two metals — they require a broad basket of critical materials.

Released footage of bridge and flooding causing cameco shut down.

People talk a lot about rockets, AI, and space technology — but none of it exists without commodities and mining.

If humanity is serious about becoming a multi-planetary species, which metals become truly strategic?

Some obvious candidates:

• Copper — electrification and power systems
• Nickel — superalloys for engines and extreme heat
• Titanium — lightweight aerospace structures
• Aluminum — spacecraft and launch infrastructure
• Lithium — batteries and energy storage
• Rare earths — magnets, sensors, and guidance systems
• Uranium — long-duration nuclear power?
• Platinum group metals — catalysts and advanced fuel systems

But what are the real bottlenecks?

Which materials would likely face the biggest supply crunch if Mars missions scaled up dramatically? And which countries or companies are best positioned to supply them?

Feels like the future of space exploration may ultimately depend on the mining sector more than most people realize.

Copper market tightens too.

Our latest podcast on the commodities spade. Hope you enjoy!

Good morning, moly nerds 👋

Let's kick off the day with a quick primer on where this stuff actually comes from and why it matters.

Where does it come from?

Molybdenum is mined primarily as the mineral molybdenite (MoS₂), and a big chunk of world supply actually comes as a byproduct of copper mining — they're often found together in the same porphyry deposits. The top producers globally are China (over 40% of world supply), Chile, the United States, and Peru. In the US, one of the most famous sources is the Henderson Mine in Colorado, which runs half a mile underground through the Rocky Mountains. It takes over 2,000 lbs of ore to recover just 4–6 lbs of the metal.

Why does it matter?

The short answer: it makes steel dramatically better. Over 80% of all mined molybdenum goes into steel and alloys, where even tiny amounts boost hardness, toughness, and corrosion resistance at extreme temperatures. That's why it shows up in pipelines, jet engines, military armor, bridges, and oil rigs.

Beyond steel, it's also used in:

• Fuel refining — catalysts that strip sulfur out of fuels
• Lubricants — MoS₂ is the slippery stuff in high-performance greases
• Electronics — filaments, heat shields, aerospace components
• Agriculture — it's actually an essential micronutrient for plants

The US government officially classifies it as a critical mineral, meaning supply disruptions would have serious national security implications.

Interesting report on the tailings situation in Indonesia.

Most people have heard the term rare earths, let alone "light rare earths". Far fewer understand what they actually are, what they do, or why governments are treating them as a national security emergency.

What are light rare earths?

Rare earth elements are a group of 17 metals that share similar chemical properties. They split into two families — light and heavy — based on atomic weight. Light rare earths are the more abundant of the two and include:

Neodymium and Praseodymium (NdPr) — by far the most strategically important. Combined into an oxide and used to make neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnets — the strongest permanent magnets known to science. Every serious electric motor, wind turbine generator, EV drivetrain, military drone, robot actuator and missile guidance system depends on them. An average EV traction motor contains roughly 5 kilograms of NdPr.

Lanthanum — used in petroleum refining catalysts, camera and telescope lenses, and hydrogen storage alloys. High volume, relatively low price.

Cerium — the most abundant rare earth. Used in glass polishing compounds, catalytic converters, UV-filtering glass and phosphors. Produced in enormous quantities as a byproduct of neodymium mining.

Samarium — used in samarium-cobalt magnets that outperform NdFeB magnets in extreme heat. Critical for aerospace, missile systems and high-temperature defence applications where ordinary magnets fail.

Europium and Gadolinium — used in display phosphors, MRI contrast agents and nuclear reactor control rods.

Where do they come from?

Light rare earths are geologically more widespread than heavy rare earths — the deposits exist on every continent. The problem has never been geology. It has always been processing.

The major sources are China's Bayan Obo deposit in Inner Mongolia — the world's largest rare earth deposit by a significant margin, predominantly rich in light REEs — alongside deposits in the United States at Mountain Pass California, Australia's Mount Weld in Western Australia, Brazil, India, Greenland and increasingly Norway, which has recently identified Europe's largest known rare earth deposit.

On paper that sounds like a diversified supply base. In practice it isn't, because almost all of it gets processed in China.

Where are they processed — and why that's the real problem

Mining rare earth ore is only step one. The material then has to be concentrated, chemically separated, refined into oxides, reduced to metals, alloyed and eventually manufactured into magnets. Each step requires specialised infrastructure and decades of accumulated process knowledge.

China refines approximately 85% of the world's light rare earths and controls around 90% of global NdFeB magnet manufacturing. Even ore mined in Australia or the United States has historically been shipped to China for processing — meaning Western countries have been dependent on Chinese refining even for material pulled from their own ground.

China's dominance was built not on irreplaceable technology but on decades of absorbing environmental costs that Western producers legally cannot avoid. Rare earth refining produces acidic wastewater, heavy metals and radioactive byproducts. The hidden subsidy behind thirty years of cheap Chinese rare earths is the environmental damage offloaded onto communities in Jiangxi and Inner Mongolia.

Why it matters right now

Demand for NdPr is forecast to grow at roughly 8.5% annually through 2030 driven by EVs, wind energy, defence spending and the robotics and AI hardware buildout. Every humanoid robot, every military drone, every offshore wind turbine requires permanent magnets. There is no substitute at scale.

Meanwhile China demonstrated in 2025 that it is willing to use this supply chain as a geopolitical weapon. Export controls introduced in April 2025 caused rare earth magnet exports to plunge more than 74% year over year in May 2025. European buyers faced prices up to six times Chinese domestic levels. Factories in the US, Europe and Asia cut production or temporarily shut down waiting for supply.

The US government has responded by taking a $400 million equity stake in MP Materials — the owner of Mountain Pass — establishing a price floor for NdPr to prevent China from flooding the market to kill Western producers, and committing to buy 100% of the magnets MP produces. Australia's Lynas is expanding NdPr production capacity significantly. Europe has committed €3 billion to build out processing and recycling infrastructure.

These are meaningful steps. They are also operating against a thirty-year head start.

The bottom line

Light rare earths — and NdPr specifically — sit at the intersection of electrification, defence modernisation and the AI hardware buildout. The supply chain runs almost entirely through China. The West spent three decades outsourcing it for the sake of low prices and is now paying the strategic cost of that decision.

The rebuild is underway. It will take most of a decade to matter at scale.

The market is not pricing in the nickel news of Sherritt leaving Cuba. S has material until June. Can the Cuban's manage the mine? What about the tailings issues? If Canada no longer can process material the mine either has to shut (may shut anyway if Cuban's running it) or the Chinese step in and take the material - further consolidating the nickel industry (which they control via Indo). Massive news. No noise...

Sherritt put out a release saying they are leaving Cuba! One of the world's important nickel mines. They have material until June. Once S leaves Cuba - that mine may not be able to operate. The US order may also mean that the material if it does come out can no longer be processed in Canada. Upshot either a big chuck of material in the nickel / cobalt market is gone or the Chinese control even more of the market.... max bullish nickel!

Better start counting nodules!