Luc Parrot

concrete solutions. The plan is also linked to the critical minerals act, where funding and red-tape removal around projects for aluminium and nickel will be crucial for the future of 🇪🇺 steel.- (8/8)

of this plan, but so far promises some research funds and more importantly €1 bn auction for electrifying industrial processes, including steel.

Overall: steelmakers seem initially pleased but almost all saying that this high level action plan needs to become clear or (7/8)

and green industry, but in terms of action all that’s promised are new trade measures for scrap supply and a circular economy act expected 2026Q4.

5.Defending quality jobs: standard 🇪🇺 phraseology.

6.De-risking projects: has potential to be the most impactful area (6/8)

that “particularly from Asia- has hit our mills’ order books”. Would like to see them go even further and point out the elephant in the steel industry 🇨🇳. 🇪🇺 wants to decrease all steel imports by 15%.

4.Circularity. For me this is a v. promising area for 🇪🇺 steel (5/8)

aluminium downstream products, and add anti-circumvention measures (no detail yet)

3.Strengthening 🇪🇺’s industrial capacity. Document writes that “Global overcapacity is a serious threat to profitability/ competitiveness” but Séjourné goes one further and points out (4/8)

states on network tariffs in Q2 (to decrease their load on high energy consumers I assume), and guidance on pairing PPAs and CfDs in Q4.

2.Carbon leakage and strengthening CBAM. To me, this seems like the big one: by EoY the Com will extend scope of CBAM to steel and (3/8)

Context for this plan is: 🇪🇺’s steel industry is ailing and has been for a long time, but is now crucial for the defensive buildup.

Here are the six key 🔑 items:

1.Ensuring affordable/ clean energy supply for the sector. 🇪🇺 Com will issue guidance for member (2/8)

🇪🇺 EU Steel and Metals Action Plan recap!!

I’m probably one of the few people worldwide who had yesterday’s action plan release marked in my calendar.

TLDR: there is some big news, some rehashed news, and not many concrete measures. (1/8)

also important to note that 10% of China's growth last year came from clean energy tech- massive govt support for this industry has also led to the overcapacity dynamics

from carbon brief: in 2024 China invested $940 bn in clean energy, compared to $1.1 tn global investment in fossil fuels.

These kind of statistics make me hopeful for an energy transition instead of an enenrgy addition (as per Yergin/ Orzag)

Canadian Tariffs Will Undermine U.S. Minerals Security Canada is the largest mineral supplier to the United States, and tariffs could hinder efforts to reduce reliance on China. The United States depends on Canada for uranium, nickel, and aluminum—key to ...

just to weigh in on tariff-mania: a recent @csis.org estimate is that 25% tariffs on 🇨🇦 will cost ~$11.75 bn to 🇺🇸 importers of critical minerals from 🇨🇦. for eg: 🇨🇦 provides about half of 🇺🇸 nickel, which could shift to cheaper Indonesian nickel. www.csis.org/analysis/can...

paradoxical with the exec order that speeds up permitting for mining projects. Matt Zeitlin @heatmap.news piece was good on these paradoxes. I talk about the permitting here: bsky.app/profile/lucp...

Thanks for reading! Feel free to share. #criticalmineral #mining #politics #geopolitics #politicalrisk

11/11 𝐑𝐄𝐂- This SCMP piece on the 🇨🇳 ministry of commerce requiring 🇨🇳 companies to expand reporting on their CM reserves abroad. Also appeared in the excellent @chinagsproject.bsky.social , but paywalled so will share SCMP. archive.ph/Q1iKc

10/11 Stargate means huge organized demand for CMs like copper, while DeepSeek’s breakthrough with fewer chips and training is proof that more is possible with less. I won’t predict anything about AI, not my area, but always worth tracking physical infra underlying and CMs.

9/11 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐃- Lastly, huge AI see-saw news with Stargate project announced in US- $500bn in AI infra to build in 🇺🇸, and DeepSeek’s breakthrough. Remember that underlying the AI boom is physical infra of chips/ data centers, and underlying are large projected demand for CMs.

8/11 Going forwards, this will boost competitors who don’t reduce their output like Philippines and New Caledonia, but another watchpoint is how much 🇨🇳demand recovers as the largest importer/ refiner (for now).

7/11 (source: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...)

6/11 (by far, >50% of global supply), prices have cratered recently, and previous 🇮🇩 admin from Jokowi aimed at building out local smelting capacity. This is an attempt to shore up prices, which have dropped since end of 2022

5/11 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐃- 🇮🇩 nickel market. Nickel ore mining quotas in 🇮🇩 could see a downgrade this year. A Bloomberg source said the quota of mined nickel could drop from 272 million tons in 2024 to 150 million tons for 2025. This matters because 🇮🇩 is the largest supplier of nickel

4/11 funding for 🇺🇸-based projects. Not sure we’ll see this admin go into projects like Biden with G7 on Lobito corridor.

3/11 Native American and other activists. Trump’s day-1 actions were a mixed bag for CMs, and repealing IRA elements like the EV subsidy will inevitably slow the EV rollout in 🇺🇸. For the battery/ CM industry, this calls into question the survivability of intl partnerships and

2/11 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓- Trump exec orders! Big news last week from the new 🇺🇸 admin, including on sped-up permitting; this is a sig. barrier to more 🇺🇸 CM mining. Going forwards huge mining projects like the RioTinto/BHP’s Resolution mine could accelerate, having faced opposition from

𝐂𝐌 𝐛𝐢𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐥𝐲 #𝟐 - Your regular thread rounding up 3 important items in this week’s CM and geopolitics news and a reading recommendation. The news, consequences, and a forecast.

Would be interested to see your prompt to get to this answer. Thanks!

Thanks for making this- I'd love to be included on the list, thank you!

Interesting idea, I'm not sure if the CM industry can induce a wider picture of Britain's role in the world but it certainly matters. I'd look more towards the UK signing agreements with countries like Saudi Arabia.

Interesting to read CRM aspect of the EU-Mexico agreement. Key points to highlight: no more differentiation between domestic price and export price, no export taxes. Usual language about sustainability. Matters mostly for fluospar, used in steel and aluminium supply chains, which Mexico provides 33%

really interesting stuff. it's still important to note how much the US is dependent on other countries that may want to respond to tariff threats- more here:

bsky.app/profile/lucp...

9/9 Thanks for reading! Feel free to share. #criticalmineral #mining #politics #geopolitics