It is widely expected that introducing greater transparency to the extractive industries will help to tackle the incidence of public mismanagement and corruption in the sector. However, very little is currently known about public demand for information about the sector or the factors that are related to the variation in demand for information. Using a novel dataset on global demand for information from the sector’s flagship international transparency organisation, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), this study is the first to examine public demand for information from a transparency initiative in the extractive industries both over time and across countries. Examining monthly fluctuations in demand for information, this study finds aggregate global demand follows secular patterns in global mineral prices. This highlights that public engagement with transparency initiatives in the extractive sector may be sensitive to shifts in policy attention over the commodity cycle, despite elevated governance risks existing during both market upturns and downturns. Cross-country regressions also show that demand for information from the EITI appears to be higher among wealthier, more open economies with lower perceived levels of corruption and higher levels of accountability. This contrasts with the expected beneficiaries of the EITI scheme and points to the need for further research on how to improve engagement strategies in countries with weaker institutional settings.
The EU Critical Raw Materials Act has repositioned former mining sites as strategic assets for European industrial policy, creating renewed pressure for extraction in communities navigating post-industrial transition through heritage preservation and tourism development. Securing local legitimacy for reactivation projects in these territories requires understanding how residents interpret the relationship between renewed extraction and existing development pathways. This paper examines how collective memory and mining identity shape community support for heritage preservation, tourism development, and mine reactivation, and whether these forms of support are mutually reinforcing or competing. Drawing on a resident survey analysed through PLS-SEM and two focus groups conducted in Borralha, a former tungsten mining settlement in northern Portugal facing a proposed reactivation project aligned with the Critical Raw Materials Act, we show that collective memory and mining identity strengthen support for heritage preservation and tourism development, which in turn raise support for mine reactivation. Rather than perceiving these as competing land uses, residents interpret them as coexisting expressions of a continuous mining culture. We propose the concept of hybrid development trajectories to capture territorial configurations where extraction, heritage, and tourism share cultural foundations and derive legitimacy from the same community identity. These findings have direct implications for how reactivation projects can build social licence to operate in former mining regions, and for how the Critical Raw Materials Act can be implemented in ways that recognise the cultural conditions shaping local acceptance across Europe.
As a critical mineral underpinning the global energy transition, cobalt faces increasing supply chain security challenges. This study incorporates risk propagation and recovery into a resilience assessment framework, constructs a multi-layer complex network model, and evaluates the resilience of the cobalt supply chain by simulating the dynamic process of risk impact, propagation, resistance, and recovery. The results indicate that: (1) The overall network resilience level of cobalt is declining and highly dependent on a few critical nodes; (2) The resilience levels of the cobalt supply chain are: midstream > downstream > upstream, with upstream resource monopolies leading to high dependence on recovery capacity. (3) Risk disturbances in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have a dominant influence, and their impact is intensifying, while secondary risk clusters have formed in countries such as Russia, the United States, and South Africa. These findings provide insights relevant to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) critical mineral security frameworks, offering an analytical basis for formulating national supply chain resilience strategies.
Mining firms increasingly seek exposure to new mineral commodities, yet systematic evidence on when such diversification endures remains limited. This paper studies 55 historical cases of mining firms entering new commodity markets worldwide between 1967 and 2024; 43 have observable outcomes under a durability criterion defined as sustained strategic presence rather than short-run financial performance. Logit and probit models are estimated on a reduced sample of 31 observations, complemented by threshold, influence, and small-sample power diagnostics. The results should be read as exploratory historical associations, not causal estimates. Operational relatedness is positively associated with durability, while majority ownership and firm size are negatively associated with durability. Discrete average marginal effects indicate that operationally related entries are associated with an approximately 41
Critical-mineral geopolitics is increasingly shaped by the expansion of artificial-intelligence infrastructure, including semiconductors, data centres, electricity networks, cooling systems, and backup-power technologies. However, policy and academic attention remain concentrated on mainstream minerals such as lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, copper, and rare earth elements, while less prominent materials may also acquire strategic importance. This study develops an integrated framework combining mineral-level AI-infrastructure relevance with mining and processing concentration, import dependency, and trade-network centrality. It also proposes explicit criteria for identifying “minerals at the margins” and applies the framework to beryllium, boron, and hafnium. The analysis shows that technological relevance does not necessarily correspond to a uniform supply-chain structure. Mainstream minerals frequently combine high AI-infrastructure relevance with concentrated processing networks, whereas selected minerals at the margins possess specialized applications and different patterns of OECD production, processing, and supply-chain position. The findings support a dynamic approach to mineral criticality that combines current supply-security measures with systematic monitoring of emerging technological requirements. Rather than pursuing complete decoupling, governments should strengthen diversification, processing capacity, recycling, international partnerships, and forward-looking mineral assessment.
China is actively seeking ways to reduce its external dependence on copper resources. However, against the backdrop of climate change, the continuous expansion of mining is both costly and unsustainable. At the same time, domestic recycled copper output remains insufficient and relies heavily on imports. So how can China build a secure and comprehensive development pathway for copper resources? This study develops a supply‑demand forecasting framework that integrates demand, primary supply, recycled supply, and reserve analysis, and uses it to evaluate the security of China’s copper resources under different scenarios. Our findings indicate that China’s total copper demand will peak between 2035 and 2040. Domestic primary copper production shows limited growth potential, whereas recycled copper supply is steadily increasing and is projected to become the primary source before 2045. Until this transition matures, China’s copper supply will remain highly import‑dependent. These results highlight that no single pathway can ensure copper resource security. A hybrid, phased strategy is essential: in the short to medium term, securing supply requires combining domestic exploration with strategic overseas investments; in the long term, a high level of resource security will depend fundamentally on building a robust circular economy.
This paper examines downside risk following speculative bubble episodes in precious metal markets. Using daily prices for gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, bubble regimes are identified with the backward supremum augmented Dickey–Fuller (BSADF) procedure. Each contiguous bubble episode contributes one observation, and post-event losses are measured from the within-episode price peak. The primary outcome is the fixed-origin peak-to-trough loss over 252 trading days, with running-peak maximum drawdown, Expected Shortfall, and downside deviation employed as alternative risk measures. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity across metals. Gold exhibits comparatively moderate episode-level losses, silver and palladium experience larger typical corrections, and platinum combines moderate central outcomes with pronounced upper-tail risk. Relative to non-bubble control peaks, fixed-origin losses are significantly greater for gold and silver. The evidence is weaker and specification-sensitive for palladium and absent for platinum. These conclusions remain robust for gold and silver when overlapping post-event windows are removed. Robustness tests using an alternative rolling right-tailed ADF detector show that the fixed-origin loss effect is sensitive to the bubble-dating procedure. However, Expected Shortfall and downside deviation remain significantly higher following bubble-related peaks across all four metals under the alternative classification. Bubble detection therefore provides more consistent information about subsequent tail-loss intensity and downside volatility than about uniformly larger cumulative price declines. The findings have implications for investors, mineral producers, industrial users, and procurement managers exposed to unstable precious-metal prices and strategic mineral supply chains.
Barite (BaSO₄) is a strategically significant industrial mineral utilized in drilling fluids, high-density construction materials, radiation shielding, and advanced engineered applications. Its increasing relevance to energy industries, import-dependent supply chains, and specialized technologies has intensified both scientific and policy interest in barite as a critical raw material. Despite this, global barite research across geology, exploration, materials science, and industrial applications has not yet been systematically reviewed. This study examines 3,133 barite-related publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection from 1990 to 2025 through bibliometric mapping and keyword co-occurrence analysis using VOSviewer. The findings delineate major research domains, including sedimentary–diagenetic systems, hydrothermal and polymetallic mineralization, magmatic–rare earth element (REE)/carbonatite associations, sulfide-related ore systems, radiation-shielding materials, and remote sensing and GIS-based exploration. Over time, the focus of barite research has expanded from geoscience to a broader interdisciplinary field encompassing materials science, applied physics, engineering, and geospatial exploration. The analysis indicates that research on barite-based materials is increasingly performance-oriented, whereas remote sensing and GIS remain emerging yet underdeveloped tools for exploration. The review highlights key future priorities, such as integrating deposit geology, ore quality, beneficiation behavior, industrial specifications, geospatial targeting, and critical raw material assessment. These results provide a structured framework for understanding the evolution of barite research and for guiding future studies at the interface of mineral resources, industrial applications, geospatial exploration, and supply-chain concerns.
This paper examines the impact of natural resource exploitation, a determinant of embodied carbon that remains underexplored beyond single-country contexts, on carbon transfer in international trade, using a structural gravity model estimated with the Pseudo-Poisson Maximum Likelihood High Dimension Fixed Effects (PPMLHDFE) estimator and embodied carbon data from the Enriched Open-Source Multi-Region Input-Output Database (EORA), covering 106 exporting and 114 importing countries over the period 1999–2021. The results show that natural resource exploitation significantly increases embodied carbon in exported goods, underscoring its role as a key driver of carbon transfer in international trade. This effect varies depending on the natural resource type and the income level of countries, with stronger impacts in middle- and high-income economies compared to low-income economies. This work contributes to the literature by providing a more direct and comprehensive empirical analysis of how natural resource exploitation shapes embodied carbon in international trade, and by offering policy-relevant evidence on carbon reduction strategies while supporting economic development and the energy transition.
Climate-related risks have become increasingly important in financial and commodity markets because of their implications for asset pricing, portfolio stability, and the global transition toward a low-carbon economy. Despite the growing strategic importance of precious metals in renewable energy technologies and sustainable investment, limited evidence exists on how different dimensions of climate risk affect these metals across market conditions. Using newly developed disaggregated climate risk indicators, this study investigates the effects of physical and transition climate risks on the returns of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. The findings reveal strong nonlinear and state-dependent relationships. In bearish markets, lower transition risks are associated with higher returns for all metals due to reduced regulatory uncertainty and improved investor sentiment. In contrast, during bullish markets, platinum and palladium respond positively to transition risks because of their industrial relevance in clean energy technologies, whereas gold and silver preserve their traditional safe-haven roles. Physical climate risks exhibit a predominantly positive relationship with metal returns across most quantiles, reinforcing the defensive and resilient nature of precious metals during periods of heightened uncertainty. The findings further show that climate risks affect metal markets through heterogeneous transmission channels that vary across market states and metal characteristics. Overall, the study highlights the growing dual role of metals as both critical industrial inputs for the green transition and defensive financial assets, while offering practical implications for climate-resilient portfolio management, climate-related financial regulation, and resilient supply-chain development.
The global shift towards clean energy systems, electric mobility and digital technologies has increased the strategic importance of critical minerals for modern industries and national security. This paper examines the global availability, production and trade patterns of the thirty critical minerals identified by India and highlights the challenges arising from concentrated supply in a few countries, and India’s high dependence on imports. Minerals such as niobium, heavy rare earth elements (HREEs), light rare earth elements (LREEs), strontium and antimony are identified as particularly vulnerable due to limited domestic reserves, negligible processing and low recycling rates. The study also evaluates India’s recent policy measures including the National Critical Minerals Mission, international partnerships, exploration reforms and the use of artificial intelligence for mineral targeting. The paper further discusses the role of critical minerals in supporting India’s progress towards Sustainable Development Goals, especially clean energy, responsible production and climate action. It further proposes a roadmap for strengthening India’s critical mineral security through diversification of supply sources, development of refining and recycling capabilities, and promoting research for material substitution. This study indicates that a secure and sustainable management of critical minerals will remain a national priority for India in the foreseeable future.
Copper plays a critical role in the clean energy transition, and geopolitical disruptions increasingly affect its supply chain, making it essential to understand how geopolitical risk is transmitted across different segments of the copper supply chain. This paper examines how geopolitical risk affects upstream, midstream, downstream, and recycling segments of the copper supply chain. Using global daily data from January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2025, we apply a time-varying parameter local projection model to analyze the dynamic responses of price indicators across different supply chain segments. The results show that the midstream segment exhibits the strongest response to geopolitical risk, the upstream segment the weakest response, and the recycling segment the fastest adjustment, which reflects clear structural heterogeneity across the supply chain. The findings further indicate that geopolitical acts generate stronger, more immediate, and more stable effects across supply chain segments, whereas geopolitical threats produce more delayed and uncertain responses. In addition, the duration of risk exposure plays a critical role in shaping the transmission of shocks across the copper supply chain. While contemporaneous shocks mainly lead to positive responses across segments, accumulated geopolitical risk produces a pattern in which responses initially increase and subsequently decline, and the negative effects become stronger as the duration of risk accumulation increases. These findings show that geopolitical risk affects different segments of the copper supply chain in systematically different ways, and they provide important implications for monitoring risks across supply chain segments and designing targeted policy interventions.
The transition toward sustainable energy systems has significantly increased the strategic importance of critical mineral resources and their associated markets. This study examines the impacts of financial markets and mineral markets on energy transition in 20 major mineral-exporting countries over the period 1990–2020. Employing panel-data econometric techniques, including Cross-Sectionally Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS-ARDL), Augmented Mean Group (AMG), and Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCEMG) estimators, the analysis distinguishes between developed and developing economies to capture potential heterogeneity in the energy transition process. The findings reveal that mineral markets contribute positively to energy transition in both the short and long run, highlighting the essential role of critical minerals in supporting renewable energy deployment and low-carbon technologies. In contrast, financial market development exhibits a negative association with energy transition, suggesting that existing financial systems in mineral-exporting economies may not sufficiently channel resources toward sustainable energy investments. Furthermore, renewable energy adoption, digital government development, and foreign direct investment are found to accelerate energy transition, particularly in developed economies. The results also indicate that high carbon-emission intensity hinders progress toward sustainable energy objectives. By integrating financial market dynamics, mineral market development, and energy transition within a unified analytical framework, this study contributes to the emerging literature on sustainable energy and resource economics. The findings provide important policy implications for strengthening sustainable mineral governance, promoting green financial mechanisms, and accelerating the transition toward a low-carbon future.
‘Not in my backyard’ (NIMBY) is a well-known phenomenon related to opposition manifested by residents against any proposed development project. In parallel to this, Finland has seen the development of a new phenomenon of resistance related to tourism and second homes alleged to be threatened by any proposed project. The phenomenon is termed ‘not in my leisure area’ (NIMLA). It was initially mentioned in connection with wind farms, mining, and mineral exploration projects in regions with tourism destinations and second homes in northern Finland. However, following the green energy transition and its associated battery minerals boom, it has recently expanded to the lake regions of central, southern, southeastern, and eastern Finland. This paper defines NIMLA and describes it through concrete cases related to mining and mineral exploration disputes in the mentioned contexts in Finland. NIMLA disputes imply an important role for second homeowners, tourists, and tourist entrepreneurs as critical mining industry stakeholders who can also ally with environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs). Most second homeowners are residents of the Uusimaa Province in southern Finland, which is the most anti-mining region in Finland. Through the second home culture and tourism, this anti-mining attitude has spread throughout the country and may influence local mining debates in second home localities and tourism destinations. In this way, such wealthy temporary residents may wish to influence which livelihoods are allowed in such municipalities but without considering local needs and public interest.
The cash cost curve (C1) plays a pivotal role in understanding the economic structure and competitiveness of the global copper mining industry. This paper presents a functional modeling approach to the C1 cost curve from 2000 to 2022, using global mine-level data to estimate the evolution of cost distribution and industry supply responsiveness. A parametric model is applied annually to estimate the base cost, shape, and slope of the industry cost curve. The study finds that the functional form of the cost curve has shifted over time ‒ reflecting likely changes in ore grades, input prices, labor productivity, technological innovation and others. We provide evidence of increasing stability in parameters of the cost curve since 2014, following a period of high volatility during the 2000s. The results also reveal a moderate convergence of C1 cost curve. We compute time-varying supply elasticities and identify significant differences in responsiveness across cost quartiles. These findings have implications for industry competitiveness, fiscal resilience, and project viability under different price regimes. The paper contributes to the literature by combining microeconomic cost modeling with an empirical analysis of structural industry trends. This enhances the understanding of supply dynamics in mineral markets and provides insights for strategic decision-making by firms and policymakers.
Mineral discoveries are a critical outcome of exploration activities, shaping the future availability of non-renewable resources. While prior research emphasizes the importance of geological potential and institutional quality in exploration decisions, empirical analyses of the determinants of exploration success remain limited. This study examines the drivers of mineral discoveries using data on gold and copper deposits alongside national-level exploration expenditures. Results show that exploration budgets are the primary determinant of both the frequency and quality of discoveries, particularly at early stages of exploration. Institutional quality does not exert a significant direct effect once financial effort is accounted for, suggesting that governance primarily operates through capital allocation mechanisms. However, interaction results indicate that institutional environments condition the effectiveness of exploration spending, with higher institutional quality associated with lower marginal returns to exploration expenditures, especially for gold. In addition, price signals influence discoveries only over long-time horizons (16 years for copper and 18 years for gold), reflecting the extended and cumulative nature of exploration processes. Estimated marginal discovery costs exceed prevailing copper market prices and approach parity with gold, suggesting systematic over-optimism or risk-seeking behavior among firms. These findings highlight structural inefficiencies in exploration systems and underscore the need for policy frameworks that go beyond price-based incentives to ensure long-term mineral supply.
This study enhances existing research by examining the impact of uncontrolled corruption on citizens’ happiness and life satisfaction in resource-rich economies. It is also the first attempt to investigate how natural resource endowments affect citizens’ life satisfaction in African countries abundant in natural resources. This research utilises a dataset of Africa’s resource-rich economies from 2012 to 2022, focusing on the challenges posed by high levels of uncontrolled corruption, low levels of happiness, and the resource curse in these nations. The study employs diverse estimators, such as moment-quantile regression, dynamic common correlated effects, the Driscoll-Kraay regression, and the modified ordinary least squares estimator. The findings reveal that uncontrolled corruption enhances citizens’ happiness and life satisfaction. On the contrary, resource wealth is an insignificant factor. The two findings persist over the short- and long-run dynamics. These findings suggest that citizens exploit significant loopholes in corruption control strategies to engage in underground activities beyond government watch, bypassing government institutions to build initiatives and enterprises that boost their happiness at the detriment of long-term societal welfare. Additionally, the study confirms that resource wealth does not significantly drive citizens’ life satisfaction in these countries. Consequently, this study concludes that uncontrolled corruption plays a critical role in explaining citizens’ happiness, and it discusses the relevant implications.
Driven by global demand, the expansion of Sweden’s mining sector has accelerated significantly since the early 2000s, bringing economic opportunities and challenges to Sámi lands. Amid ongoing debates about sustainability and Indigenous rights, this article examines the historical consequences of mining industrialization on Sámi livelihoods in Kiruna, using Large Technological Systems theory. Kiruna, Sweden’s most important mining town, has been subject to mining since the 1600s, affecting both local economies and traditional Sámi livelihoods, particularly reindeer herding. Historically, early modern mining had limited effects on Sámi ways of life, but large-scale mining in the twentieth century created significant challenges, as expanding infrastructure and demographic shifts disrupted reindeer herding. Industrialization also altered power dynamics and cultural landscapes, continuously reshaping traditional practices. Using archival research and historical text and map analysis, this article argues that contemporary challenges related to mining and Sámi rights are shaped by historical processes, where industry-driven expansion has interacted with and reshaped traditional ways of life. As reindeer herding depends on undisturbed landscapes, its future remains uncertain in regions affected by mining. While compensatory measures aim to mitigate disruptions, the broader implications for Sámi cultural sustainability and land rights warrant continued examination.
In the last two decades, rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have driven into global warming. Efforts like expanding renewable energy, produce an increased metal demand, especially copper, which also emits GHGs. Trying to mitigate this, the European Union established the Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) to regulate and price industrial GHG emissions. This study quantifies the GHG emissions associated with copper production and examines the impact of the EU-ETS and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on copper costs across different temporal and geographical scenarios, concretely across the supply chain of four different countries. A Life Cycle Carbon Footprint assessment was conducted using the Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output Analysis with the EXIOBASE database. A sensitivity analysis was also conducted. The results showed that Poland, despite having the lowest emissions, was the most penalized under the EU-ETS, while China, with one of the highest GHG emissions, faced minimal costs. This discrepancy arises as cost from the EU-ETS are based on an allocation principle, which benefits non-EU countries and EU countries that primarily import copper. The study suggests that incorporating copper into the CBAM could help balance emissions and costs by accounting for the GHG emissions of imported products. The sensitivity analysis revealed that countries with higher import levels, such as Spain and Germany, have less control over GHG emission costs by altering their electricity mix. This emphasises the need for coordinated global targets to effectively mitigate emissions.
Nigeria is endowed with vast solid mineral resources that remain largely underexploited, despite their potential to catalyse national infrastructure development and drive inclusive economic growth. This study examines the challenges and prospects of linking Nigeria’s mineral wealth with infrastructure development, within the broader context of sustainable development and regional integration. Drawing from empirical data, national reports, and comparative global case studies, the research identifies institutional fragmentation, policy and regulatory bottlenecks, weak governance, and limited financing mechanisms as key barriers to integrated mineral-infrastructure planning. It also explores successful models from countries such as Mozambique, Guinea, Botswana, Chile, and South Africa, providing strategic insights applicable to Nigeria’s context. The study proposes a framework for developing mineral corridors, embedding infrastructure obligations in mining licenses, leveraging resource-for-infrastructure partnerships, and enhancing inter-agency coordination. By implementing these reforms, Nigeria can unlock the transformative potential of its mining sector, bridge its infrastructure gap and foster long-term economic diversification. The findings contribute to policy discourse on resource-based development and offer actionable recommendations for stakeholders across government, industry, and development finance institutions.
