Critical Materials Atlas
Method · concentration · GeoPolRisk

Concentration, measured properly

Most of this atlas scores concentration from trade dollars — the number the engine itself calls its most attackable choice. The field’s standard (EU Critical Raw Materials, the GeoPolRisk indicator) instead uses physical production tonnes, weighted by governance. This page computes that from the World Mining Data tonnages, and lays value, volume and production side by side to show exactly where the dollar view misleads.

The method, and the literature it follows

For each material: HHIprod = sum of squared production shares (World Mining Data 2024 tonnes, all producing countries) — the physical concentration. Governance risk = each producer’s share × its World Bank WGI risk (worse-governed producers count more). GeoPolRisk = HHIprod × governance risk. We then set HHIprod beside the atlas’s trade-value HHI and trade-volume HHI.

What this is, precisely: a global production-concentration supply-risk — physical mine HHI × production-weighted governance — in the spirit of the EU CRM global supply-risk factor. It is not the import-based GeoPolRisk of Gemechu et al. 2016 (Cimprich/Helbig/Sonnemann), whose defining move is to weight governance by a specific importer’s actual supplier shares — a consumer-perspective question this page does not answer. Both are legitimate; they are different questions, and this is the producer/global one. Caveats: global, not importer-specific; a few small producers lack a WGI match (coverage shown); phosphorus shares phosphate’s sheet. Inputs: WMD tonnes × wgi.json × data.json → geopolrisk.json.

Three ways to measure the same concentration

Each dot is a material: trade-value HHI (x, what the atlas headlines) vs production HHI (y, the standard). On the line = they agree. Below = trade value overstates concentration (a price or processing effect); above = it understates it.

Supply risk on the standard measure (GeoPolRisk)

Production concentration × governance risk — the metals where a lot of world supply sits in few, and badly-governed, hands.

MaterialGeoPolRiskproduction HHIgovernance risktop producer

Every material — value vs volume vs production

Materialconcentration (0–1): value · volume · productionvalue→prod rank shift

The consumer view: who you buy from (import-based GeoPolRisk)

Everything above is the producer view — how concentrated and badly-governed is global supply. The real Gemechu-2016 GeoPolRisk asks a different question: weight governance by each bloc’s actual bilateral suppliers (who it imports from), not global production. The same metal then carries very different risk for different blocs.

Why this matters

This puts the atlas on the same footing as the EU’s official criticality work and the GeoPolRisk literature: supply concentration measured where it physically happens — the mine — not where the money changes hands. Where the two agree, the trade-value story was safe; where they diverge, the dollar view was quietly reporting a price or a refining hub as if it were a mine. It doesn’t replace the trade lens — trade is still how material actually moves and where chokepoints bite — but it anchors the concentration claim in tonnes, and closes the gap the engine’s own caveat left open.