IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025

Provenance note: IEA blocked automated fetch (HTTP 403; the PDF mirror exceeded the 10MB fetch ceiling). Summary-derived from discovery-search extraction of IEA content. Re-ingest the full report for the complete tables.

Core Thesis

Announced supply projects fall short of projected 2035 demand for the two highest-volume energy-transition metals, even as supply concentration and weak investment compound the risk.

Key Projections

• Copper: ~30% implied deficit by 2035 (STEPS — announced mined supply vs demand).
• Lithium: ~40% implied deficit by 2035 (STEPS).
• Lithium demand +16% YoY in 2026, ~58% of incremental demand from EVs.
• Copper demand +2.6% YoY in 2026; tight market amid disruptions + low inventories.
• Copper gap driven by declining ore grades, rising project costs, slowing discoveries.
• Lithium near-term well-supplied; balances tip to deficit in the 2030s (better project pipeline than copper).

Investment / Risk

• Critical-mineral investment rose just +5% in 2024 (down from +14% in 2023); ~+2% real after cost inflation.
• Supply/refining concentration in a few countries = key resilience risk (links to china-export-controls, processing-chokepoint).

Source: IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 (fetch blocked; summary-derived).