Topic

Critical minerals

Why conflict in mineral-rich regions matters for cobalt, copper, gold, uranium and battery supply chains — a hub linking Warconomy's minerals briefings and sources.

Modern technology — phones, electric cars, grids, defense equipment — depends on a set of critical minerals whose supply is often geographically concentrated, sometimes in conflict-affected regions. When supply sits in a few places, localized disruption can have outsized global effects. Warconomy does not yet carry a minerals price series, so this hub explains the mechanisms and points to authoritative external data.

  • The things we rely on every day are built from minerals dug in a handful of places. Concentration plus conflict is a structural risk to the supply chains behind electronics and electrification.
  • Every figure lives on its own source-linked page — this guide adds no new numbers.
  • Careful, associative language: not investment advice, not legal advice, not real-time.

Why this matters

The things we rely on every day are built from minerals dug in a handful of places. Concentration plus conflict is a structural risk to the supply chains behind electronics and electrification.

What the data shows

  • Plain-English briefings on critical minerals in Africa, eastern DRC cobalt/copper, and the Sahel's uranium and gold.
  • Links to USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries and other authoritative external sources for the underlying figures.
  • The data-needs backlog and free-data roadmap for where a future minerals series could come from.

Warconomy pages on this topic

What this cannot prove

  • It asserts no specific mine output or mineral price, and no claim that a particular event changed supply by a measured amount.
  • Supply concentration describes exposure, not a prediction of disruption.
  • Warconomy does not track live mine production or real-time mineral prices.

Sources & data

Browse the cited sources, download the dataset export, or read the methodology. New to Warconomy? How to use Warconomy.

Related Warconomy pages