Shortages of critical minerals through 2035 may hinge as much on whether miners can reliably process and deliver usable material as on whether enough tonnes are mined, according to GEM Mining Consulting.
Using the International Energy Agency's 2035 outlook as a benchmark, GEM analysed copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, battery-grade graphite and magnet rare earths. Expected supply covers only 68% of lithium requirements, 74% for cobalt and 75% for copper.
However, the largest deficits do not necessarily indicate the weakest supply chains. Graphite and magnet rare earths are expected to achieve supply coverage of 96% and 107%, respectively, yet carry GEM's highest chain-fragility scores at 89 and 95 out of 100.
Lithium faces the greatest volume pressure, scoring 80 on GEM's Volume Scarcity Index, while copper scores 62. Cobalt combines a supply deficit with high chain fragility, scoring 78.
Nickel presents the reverse problem: supply is expected to cover 92% of requirements, but its chain-fragility score reaches 66 due to concentration in Indonesia and China and limited diversified refining capacity.
GEM also argues that announced production capacity can exaggerate future supply, as nameplate output does not account for commissioning, ramp-up, product quality, customer qualification or operating disruptions. In a worked example, these hurdles cut a hypothetical project's 100,000-tonne annual nameplate capacity to 60,200 tonnes of reliable output.
The broader message is that reserves alone are not supply: critical minerals must ultimately be financed, permitted, mined, processed, qualified and reliably delivered.
