Critical Materials Atlas
Synthesis · 2024

The state of critical-materials supply

The whole atlas in one screen — the highest-risk materials, the biggest origin gaps, China's footprint across the chain, the materials with no recycling cushion, the most-exposed economies, and — with the series now reaching back to 2002 — how that concentration has intensified over two decades. Every figure links to its detail.

32
critical materials
18/32
top exporter ≠ top miner
9
China is the top exporter
7
China leads mine + refine + export
Second finding

The materials with no way out

9 of the 32 materials are at once hard to substitute, essentially un-recycled (<5% end-of-life), and supply-concentrated — so a disruption bites (no substitute), has no secondary supply to fall back on (no recycling), and one country controls the flow. For 8 of the 9, that chokepoint is China's refining. These — not the loudest headlines — are the materials where a shock is both most damaging and least mitigable.

Materialrisktop exporterrefined in
Beryllium, unwrought74🇰🇿 Kazakhstan 89%🇺🇸 United States 65%
Lithium carbonate65🇨🇱 Chile 75%🇨🇳 China 74%
Gallium58🇨🇳 China 32%🇨🇳 China 98%
Phosphorus56🇻🇳 Vietnam 47%🇨🇳 China 78%
Rare-earth permanent magnets52🇨🇳 China 64%🇨🇳 China 84%
Natural graphite51🇨🇳 China 36%🇨🇳 China 94%
Fluorspar, >97% CaF250🇲🇽 Mexico 38%🇨🇳 China 60%
Silicon, < 99.99%47🇨🇳 China 40%🇨🇳 China 79%
Germanium47🇨🇳 China 32%🇨🇳 China 94%
A third cut · two decades

Concentration is intensifying

With the reconciled trade series now reaching back to 2002, the concentration story is testable, not just visible. 9 of the 32 materials show a rising export-concentration trend significant on an FDR-corrected Mann–Kendall screen (23 annual points; exploratory), and their structural breaks cluster in 2012–2016 (8 of them). The trade-side origin gap runs wide (~15–17pp, with a step at the 2017 HS-vintage join), and China's average network throughput — its centrality as importer-and-hub, not just exporter — rose from 10% to 18%. China's export share of rare-earth magnets climbed 19→64%, of tungsten 9→74%. See it move →

Highest supply risk

full index →

The refiner illusion — biggest origin gaps

the finding →

No recycling cushion

High-risk and barely recycled — a disruption has no secondary supply to fall back on.

Most-exposed economies

all countries →

China's footprint. Across the 32 materials, China is the top miner in 13, the top refiner in 20, and the top exporter in 9. It leads the entire chain — mine, refine and export — in 7: Rare-earth permanent magnets, Magnesium, unwrought, Germanium, Natural graphite, Gallium, Tungsten, unwrought, Silicon, < 99.99%. But the origin gap shows the reverse case too: many apparent dependencies on European/Japanese refiners are really upstream dependencies on African and Latin-American mines.

Computed by build_insights.py from the public data (data.json, flows_2024.json, risk.json). Trade year 2024.