Mineral Wealth and Electrification — Report

This report examines the changing distribution of natural resource wealth around the production of minerals critical to electrification. In this report, we look at eight such materials: aluminum, cobalt, copper, natural graphite, iron, lithium, manganese, and nickel.

We adopt a producer-country perspective centered on the potential for wealth creation and public value capture and investment. The research shows scenarios from 2023 and possibilities for 2030, demonstrating that a new set of producer countries, most of which are in the Global South and characterized as commodity-dependent by UNCTAD, are set to become the world’s top sites for energy transition extraction.

The extraction of these materials, such as lithium and cobalt, has already opened the door to significant and growing value creation. Yet in contrast to mineral fuels like oil and gas, critical minerals have far lower trade value, and their extraction is only the first step along complex supply chains for high-value products. For instance, the World Economic Forum estimates that in 2030, lithium, nickel, and cobalt mining together will account for only 3% of the total sales value across the lithium-ion battery value chain.

Our report suggests two major policy recommendations for producer countries: first, to capture the value of their resources, we would recommend a focus especially on the refining capacity that can diversify supply chains and vastly increase host-country wealth retention. Second, we see a critical role for diverse investment and stabilization instruments such as sovereign wealth funds, which can be potent tools for building stable and shared prosperity across generations.