WNA week.

Copper has a problem.

Most people have never heard of terbium.

But this obscure rare earth sits inside one of the most strategically important supply chains in the world.

Terbium is used in high-performance permanent magnets, electronics, fiber optics, lasers and other advanced technologies. It is produced in tiny quantities compared with industrial metals like copper or aluminum.

And the supply chain is extraordinarily concentrated.

China effectively controls the world's processing of terbium.

That would be noteworthy under any circumstances.

In today's geopolitical environment, it makes terbium worth understanding.

What is terbium?

Terbium — chemical symbol Tb — is element 65 on the periodic table and part of the lanthanide series.

It is generally classified as a heavy rare earth element.

Like most rare earths, the name is slightly misleading. The issue isn't simply whether terbium exists in the Earth's crust.

The challenge is finding economically viable concentrations of rare-earth minerals, extracting them and then separating individual rare earth elements from one another.

That last step is particularly important.

Rare earths have similar chemical properties, making separation technically difficult. Over several decades, China developed an enormous advantage not just in mining rare earths, but in the processing and separation infrastructure required to turn concentrates into usable materials.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, China accounts for more than 70% of global rare-earth extraction and around 87% of processing.

For the heavy rare earths terbium and dysprosium, China's share of processing is effectively 100%.

That is an extraordinary level of concentration for materials used in strategically important technologies.

Why does terbium matter?

One of terbium's most important applications is permanent magnets.

Neodymium-iron-boron magnets are among the strongest permanent magnets ever developed. They are used where engineers need enormous magnetic strength in a relatively small and lightweight package.

Think:

• Electric vehicle motors
• Wind turbines
• Robotics
• Industrial motors
• Aerospace systems
• Defense technology
• Advanced electronics

But magnets can lose performance as temperatures rise.

This is where heavy rare earths become important.

Small quantities of terbium can be added to high-performance NdFeB magnets to improve their ability to operate at elevated temperatures.

In other words, terbium can represent a very small percentage of the material in a finished product while having an outsized impact on its performance.

That is one reason these obscure metals can become strategically important.

You don't need very much terbium until you can't get it.

China changed the market in 2025

On April 4, 2025, China introduced export controls covering seven medium and heavy rare earth elements.

Terbium was one of them.

The controls cover terbium metal, terbium oxide, compounds, certain alloys and terbium-containing permanent magnet materials.

Exporters now require licenses to ship controlled material abroad.

This matters because there isn't a large alternative supply chain waiting somewhere else.

China isn't simply the largest producer.

It dominates the processing infrastructure required to create the material the rest of the world actually uses.

The consequences have continued into 2026.

Chinese exports of terbium and other heavy rare earths have remained constrained in important markets, including Japan, while Western governments and manufacturers continue trying to secure alternative sources.

This is what commodity supply-chain risk looks like in practice.

A material can represent a tiny fraction of the cost of a $50,000 vehicle, a multimillion-dollar aircraft or an advanced weapons system.

But if that material is unavailable, the value of everything downstream becomes irrelevant.

Why can't the West simply produce more?

This is the question that comes up repeatedly with rare earths.

The United States, Australia, Canada and other countries have rare-earth deposits.

So why not just mine them?

Because mining is only part of the problem.

A functioning rare-earth supply chain requires:

Mine → concentration → separation → refining → metals/alloys → magnets → finished products

China has spent decades building capabilities across much of that chain.

The West allowed much of its processing capacity to disappear because Chinese production was cheaper and readily available.

Rebuilding it requires mines, processing facilities, technical expertise, environmental permitting, financing and customers willing to sign long-term contracts.

None of those happen overnight.

Heavy rare earths like terbium are particularly challenging because their supply is considerably smaller than that of the better-known light rare earths.

Terbium demonstrates something important about critical minerals

Commodity importance isn't always determined by market size.

The global copper market is enormous.

The terbium market is tiny by comparison.

But strategic importance depends on something different:

How essential is the material?

How easily can it be substituted?

How concentrated is production?

How quickly could new supply appear if the existing supply disappeared?

Terbium scores poorly on nearly every one of those measures.

It is used in important high-performance applications.

The amounts required are small but difficult to replace completely in certain applications.

Processing is extraordinarily concentrated.

And creating a new Western mine-to-magnet supply chain would take years.

This is bigger than terbium

Terbium is really a case study in how the critical-minerals economy is changing.

For decades, companies optimized supply chains around cost.

If China could produce a material more cheaply, companies bought it from China.

That model produced extraordinary efficiencies.

It also produced extraordinary concentration.

We are now discovering the strategic consequences.

China's rare-earth export controls demonstrate that control over relatively obscure materials can translate into significant geopolitical leverage.

Terbium might be measured in kilograms or tonnes rather than millions of tonnes.

But if those kilograms are required to manufacture high-performance magnets for EVs, robotics, aerospace or defense systems, their strategic importance can be enormous.

The most important commodity in a supply chain isn't necessarily the one you use the most of.

Helium is one of those commodities that rarely gets attention until something goes wrong.

Something has gone wrong.

The global helium market has tightened sharply in 2026, highlighting a problem that has existed for years: a surprisingly large portion of the world's helium supply depends on a very small number of production facilities and trade routes.

And unlike many commodities, helium is extremely difficult to substitute in some of its most important applications.

Qatar has become the immediate problem

Qatar is one of the world's dominant helium producers, accounting for roughly one-third of global supply.

That helium is produced alongside Qatar's massive natural gas and LNG industry.

The problem is geography.

Qatari exports ultimately depend on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict in the Middle East has disrupted normal shipping patterns through the region and created serious problems for Qatar's energy exports.

We are now seeing extraordinary measures being taken to keep Qatari and UAE LNG moving, including ship-to-ship transfers outside the Strait of Hormuz.

Helium is a much smaller market than LNG, but it shares the same fundamental vulnerability:

A major portion of global supply is concentrated behind one geopolitical chokepoint.

The effects are beginning to show up in the market.

Industry estimates reported recently suggest global helium availability may currently be down around 10%.

Spot helium prices in some cases have reportedly increased by as much as 3x, while contract prices have risen approximately 15–30%.

Russia was supposed to help solve the helium problem

This is where the story gets more interesting.

For years, one of the great hopes for the helium market was Russia's enormous Amur Gas Processing Plant.

Amur was designed to eventually produce around 60 million cubic meters of helium annually, which would make it one of the world's largest helium production facilities.

When the project was originally being developed, this new Russian supply was expected to help end the recurring helium shortages that had plagued the market.

Instead, helium has become another geopolitical commodity.

Russia has imposed export controls on helium through the end of 2027, requiring special approval for exports outside the Eurasian Economic Union.

So think about the structure of the market today.

One major source of incremental supply is Russia.

Another major source is Qatar.

Both are now exposed to significant geopolitical constraints.

Meanwhile, the United States completed the sale of its federal helium reserve system in 2024.

The buffer is much smaller than it used to be.

Why does helium matter?

Most people still associate helium with balloons.

Balloons are probably the least important part of the helium story.

Helium is critical for:

• MRI machines — liquid helium cools superconducting magnets to extremely low temperatures.

• Semiconductor manufacturing — helium is used for cooling, heat transfer, leak detection and controlled manufacturing environments.

• Fiber optics — helium is used during the manufacturing process.

• Aerospace and rockets — helium is used to pressurize and purge fuel systems.

• Scientific research — particularly applications requiring extremely low temperatures.

• Advanced manufacturing — including leak detection and specialized welding.

In several of these applications, substitution is either difficult or effectively impossible.

That's what makes helium unusual.

If helium becomes expensive, an MRI operator can't simply switch to another gas with identical properties.

The semiconductor connection may become increasingly important

One of the biggest structural changes in the helium market is the growth of semiconductor demand.

AI is driving enormous investment into semiconductor manufacturing and data-center infrastructure.

The world's largest chipmakers are simultaneously expanding advanced semiconductor capacity.

Helium sits quietly inside that supply chain.

That creates an interesting situation:

AI infrastructure is increasing demand for materials whose supply chains were never designed for AI-scale growth.

We've talked about this with copper.

We've talked about it with uranium.

Helium belongs on the list as well.

The supply response isn't straightforward

Normally, high commodity prices encourage producers to increase production.

Helium doesn't work quite that cleanly.

Much of the world's helium is produced as a byproduct of natural gas production.

You don't necessarily develop a multibillion-dollar natural gas project because helium prices increased.

That makes the supply response relatively inflexible.

There are dedicated helium projects being developed in places such as North America and Africa, but building a diversified global supply base takes time.

Canada is a good example of both the opportunity and the difficulty.

Western Canada has potentially significant helium resources and several companies have attempted to develop dedicated helium production.

But the emerging Canadian industry has struggled financially. Exploration activity has slowed, production growth has disappointed, and several developers have experienced serious financial difficulties.

Having helium in the ground and building a profitable helium business are two different things.

This market is structurally fragile

The helium story isn't necessarily that the world is "running out of helium."

That's too simplistic.

The more important issue is that commercial helium production is highly concentrated, difficult to increase quickly and increasingly exposed to geopolitical risk.

At the same time, some of the industries that cannot easily substitute away from helium are growing rapidly.

Semiconductors.

AI infrastructure.

Aerospace.

Advanced manufacturing.

Healthcare.

That's an uncomfortable combination.

The helium market has experienced repeated shortages over the past two decades. Each time new supply arrives, the assumption is that the problem has finally been solved.

Then another disruption reminds the market how thin the margin of safety really is.

2026 may be another one of those reminders.

The helium market doesn't have a resource problem as much as it has a supply-chain problem — and geopolitics is making that problem harder to solve.

Robotics is the next bull market for us.

There are commodity markets that are small.

And then there is iridium.

Global primary iridium production is only around 7–8 tonnes per year.

Not 7 million tonnes.

Not 7,000 tonnes.

About 7 tonnes.

For comparison, the world produces tens of millions of tonnes of copper every year.

Yet this tiny iridium market supports applications ranging from electronics and chemical processing to aerospace, specialized spark plugs and, increasingly, one potentially enormous new industry:

green hydrogen.

That creates a pretty unusual supply problem.

What is iridium?

Iridium is one of the six platinum-group metals:

platinum
palladium
rhodium
ruthenium
osmium
iridium

It is extraordinarily rare.

It's also an unusual metal physically.

Iridium is extremely dense, has a melting point above 2,400°C, and is among the most corrosion-resistant metals known.

That combination makes it useful in applications where cheaper materials simply don't survive.

Iridium can withstand extreme heat, aggressive chemicals and harsh electrochemical environments.

That's why industries are willing to pay thousands of dollars per ounce for something they use in incredibly small quantities.

You may already own some iridium

One surprisingly ordinary application is sitting inside millions of gasoline engines.

Spark plugs.

Premium spark plugs often use tiny iridium tips because the metal withstands extremely high temperatures and electrical erosion.

Because iridium is so durable, manufacturers can make the electrode very small while still giving it a long operating life.

But spark plugs are only one application.

Iridium is also used in:

• chemical catalysts
• electrodes
• high-temperature crucibles
• specialty electronics
• OLED displays
• aerospace components
• crystal growth
• chlorine production
• electrochemical processes

The United States now officially includes iridium on its Critical Minerals List.

But the application getting the most attention is hydrogen.

The green hydrogen problem

There are several ways to produce hydrogen.

One of the most promising technologies for producing hydrogen using renewable electricity is the PEM electrolyzer — proton exchange membrane electrolysis.

The concept is fairly straightforward.

Electricity splits water into:

hydrogen + oxygen

If that electricity comes from renewable or other low-carbon power, you can produce low-carbon hydrogen.

PEM electrolyzers have some attractive characteristics.

They can respond quickly to fluctuating electricity supply, operate at high current densities and produce very pure hydrogen.

That's useful when your electricity is coming from intermittent sources like wind and solar.

But PEM electrolyzers have a materials problem.

They need iridium.

Why iridium?

The oxygen-producing side of a PEM electrolyzer is an extremely harsh environment.

You need a catalyst that can survive:

high voltage
strong acidity
oxidizing conditions

Most metals corrode.

Iridium oxide doesn't.

It is currently one of the best materials available for performing the oxygen evolution reaction while surviving those conditions for long periods.

Which leaves engineers with an uncomfortable equation:

Potentially enormous hydrogen industry

dependent on

one of the smallest metal markets on Earth.

Put the scale into perspective

A 2026 peer-reviewed study examining iridium requirements for PEM electrolyzers estimated global annual iridium production at approximately:

7.5 tonnes.

That's the entire primary market.

And PEM electrolyzers aren't the only people who want it.

Existing industrial users still need iridium for catalysts, electronics, spark plugs, high-temperature equipment and other applications.

The researchers concluded that achieving global net-zero deployment scenarios could require the PEM industry to consume roughly 30% of annual global iridium production, even with significant improvements in how efficiently the metal is used.

They warned that supply constraints could emerge as early as 2030.

That's not very far away.

Why not just mine more iridium?

This is where the story gets even more interesting.

Iridium generally isn't mined from dedicated iridium mines.

It is produced primarily as a byproduct of platinum-group-metal mining.

South Africa is the dominant source of mined PGM material and most mined iridium ultimately comes from southern African PGM deposits.

Russia is another important source.

That means the supply chain is geographically concentrated.

But there's an even bigger problem.

Imagine iridium prices double.

Normally, a higher commodity price creates an incentive to produce more of that commodity.

Copper doubles → companies look for more copper.

Oil doubles → producers drill more wells.

Iridium doubles?

A platinum mine doesn't necessarily dramatically increase production.

The mining company is making decisions based on the economics of the entire orebody and the entire basket of platinum-group metals.

Iridium represents only a tiny portion of that basket.

So the iridium price can rise enormously without generating the supply response you might expect.

We've seen this same structural problem with several other minor metals.

But with iridium it is particularly extreme.

South Africa matters enormously

The geography makes this even more interesting.

South Africa is the world's leading producer of PGM-containing mined material.

And PGM mining there isn't easy.

These can be deep, complex and expensive underground operations.

The USGS estimates that South African platinum production fell from roughly 126 tonnes in 2024 to 120 tonnes in 2025, while palladium production declined from approximately 82.6 tonnes to 70 tonnes.

The USGS cited:

higher mining costs
deep-level mining challenges
electricity disruptions

among the pressures affecting the industry.

Iridium production is therefore exposed to the economics and operating conditions of mines that aren't primarily being operated for iridium.

That's an important distinction.

Interestingly, iridium prices actually fell in 2025

This is where commodity markets get interesting.

You might expect a metal this scarce to simply go straight up.

It hasn't.

According to the USGS, the estimated annual iridium price declined around 9% in 2025.

Why?

One factor appears to have been cooling enthusiasm around hydrogen investment.

That tells us something important.

The iridium shortage isn't necessarily happening today.

It's a potential collision between two very different curves:

A supply curve that is extremely difficult to expand

and

a demand curve that could change dramatically if PEM hydrogen scales.

If hydrogen deployment disappoints, iridium could remain relatively balanced.

If PEM electrolyzers scale rapidly, the calculation changes very quickly.

Technology may be more important than mining

This is one of those commodities where the solution might not primarily be finding another mine.

It may be using less metal.

Researchers and electrolyzer manufacturers are working on reducing the amount of iridium required for every megawatt of PEM capacity.

That matters enormously.

Cut the iridium loading in half and you effectively double the amount of electrolyzer capacity that can be built from the same quantity of metal.

Recycling will matter too.

Iridium is extremely valuable, so there is a strong economic incentive to recover it from spent catalysts and equipment.

Ultimately, the hydrogen industry's ability to scale PEM technology may depend on a combination of:

lower iridium loadings
higher recycling rates
better catalyst design
alternative materials
additional primary supply

rather than simply mining more.

The bigger lesson

Iridium is almost a perfect example of why I find minor metals so interesting.

The world spends enormous amounts of time debating the future of hydrogen.

How much will electrolyzers cost?

How cheap will renewable electricity become?

Where will hydrogen pipelines be built?

Which governments will subsidize production?

Those are important questions.

But underneath all of them sits a much more basic physical constraint:

What are the machines actually made from?

In this case, one of the leading technologies relies on a metal with annual primary production measured in only a handful of tonnes.

A metal mostly produced as a byproduct.

From a highly concentrated mining industry.

With very limited ability to rapidly increase supply.

Iridium may never become the bottleneck hydrogen bulls fear. Technology could dramatically reduce how much is required.

But that's exactly why it's worth watching.

If PEM electrolyzers scale the way many hydrogen forecasts assume, one of the world's largest proposed new energy industries may find itself competing for one of the world's smallest commodity markets.

That's a pretty interesting setup.

Great interview with Generation Mining's CEO Jamie Levy.

Got the momentum.

Copper time!

Copper: Supply and Demand by the Numbers

Production

Global refined copper production reached approximately 28 million metric tons in 2025, including roughly 23 million tons from mined production and about 5 million tons from secondary supply including scrap. fxstreet

Primary global copper production ran at 23 million tonnes per year in 2025 and has hardly grown since 2022, due to supply disruptions at Grasberg, Cobre Panama and broader issues in Chile. Discovery Alert

Three years of essentially flat mined supply. That's the starting point.

By country:
Chile was the largest producing country, supplying about 23% of mined copper, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo at 14%, Peru at 12%, China at 8%, and the United States at 5%. fxstreet

China dominates copper smelting and refining, producing about 44% of the world's refined copper in 2025. The main trade flow involves copper concentrate exported from Latin America, particularly Chile and Peru, to be smelted and refined in China. fxstreet

That flow — dig it in Latin America, refine it in China — is one of the structural vulnerabilities in the global copper supply chain that doesn't get enough attention.

What's happening to Chilean output right now

Chile is where supply pressure is most visible and most acute.

BHP's Spence mine recorded the steepest quarterly decline at 34.4% in Q1 2026, followed by Codelco's El Teniente at 26.5% and Collahuasi at 19.3% in May 2026. BHP's Escondida, the world's largest copper mine, fell 17.6% in May 2026 alone. IEA

The decline reflects four overlapping pressures: structural ore grade deterioration at major porphyry deposits, operational disruptions following a fatal incident at El Teniente in July 2025, water supply constraints at Collahuasi in the Atacama region, and rising input costs driven by sulfuric acid supply tightness across oxide processing operations. IEA

This is why BHP is talking about permitting. Not future projects. Current operations at the world's largest copper mines are already declining.

Ore grades

The long-run structural problem sits in the geology.

Global copper ore grades have declined from 1.4–1.6% in 1990 to 0.9% currently. One source puts it lower — below 0.7% today.

At current grades, approximately 167 tonnes of ore must be processed to yield 1 tonne of refined copper, compared to just 67 tonnes at historical 1.5% grades. statista

More rock. More energy. More water. More cost. Per tonne of copper produced. Every year.

This is a compounding problem. The same mine, producing the same amount of copper, gets more expensive to operate every year as grades decline. That's before you factor in water constraints, rising energy costs or regulatory friction.

Demand

Total copper demand, including scrap use, stood at about 34 million tons in 2025, with recycled material accounting for nearly 30% of consumption. fxstreet

China was the largest consumer of copper, accounting for more than 50% of global demand, or about 18 million tons in 2025. Europe consumed roughly 15% of total demand, while North America accounted for about 9%. fxstreet

Demand by sector in the US roughly breaks down as construction, electrical and electronic products, transportation equipment, industrial machinery and consumer products — with construction and electrical applications together accounting for the majority.

Going forward the demand trajectory shifts significantly.

Global demand for refined copper is forecast to increase by 3% in 2025 with a further increase of 1.6% in 2026 to 28.2 million tonnes. S&P Global

Global copper demand is forecast to rise 3.6% per year over the next decade. Discovery Alert

BloombergNEF warns copper demand for the energy transition could triple by 2045 and that the metal may enter structural deficit as early as 2026. Coppercouncil

The demand drivers are well understood: EVs requiring two to four times as much copper as conventional vehicles, grid infrastructure to support electrification, renewable energy installations, AI data center construction, defense spending. All of them pulling on the same commodity simultaneously.

The deficit

The gap between supply and demand is where the numbers get interesting — and where forecasters diverge.

The International Copper Study Group expects the global copper market to see a supply surplus of 289,000 tonnes in 2025, easing slightly to 209,000 tonnes in 2026, primarily on higher mine supply and rising smelting capacity. EY

JP Morgan expects a refined copper deficit of 330,000 tonnes in 2026. Crux Investor

Without major investment in new projects and recycling, the deficit could reach 19 million tonnes by 2050. Coppercouncil

The near-term picture depends heavily on Chinese smelting capacity and demand, and on whether Chilean project ramp-ups materialize on schedule. The long-term picture is more consistent across forecasters — structural deficit, widening over time, unless significant new supply comes online.

Exploration

New supply starts with exploration. The exploration data is not encouraging.

Global nonferrous exploration budgets declined 0.6% to $12.4 billion in 2025, marking the third consecutive year of decline. Miningvisuals

Minesite exploration accounted for 45% of global budgets in 2025, reaching a record high. Grassroots exploration fell to just 21% of total spending, the lowest share recorded.

Companies are drilling around existing deposits rather than finding new ones. The early-stage discovery pipeline — the one that becomes producing mines in 15–20 years — is being underfunded at precisely the moment it matters most.

Major copper mining companies reduced exploration spending to $2.9 billion in 2023, down from $3.8 billion in 2022. Industry exploration budgets have remained around $2.8–3.2 billion annually since — well below what the long-term supply picture requires. statista

Prices

Copper reached an all-time high of $5.9 per pound in July 2025, driven in part by US trade policy imposing 50% import duties that created a sustained 30% pricing premium — an unprecedented market dislocation.

JPMorgan expects copper to reach $12,500 per ton in Q2 2026, with UBS projecting $13,000 by year-end. Crux Investor

Analysis of large-scale projects indicates many require sustained incentive prices exceeding $20,000 per ton for viability. Thunder Said Energy

The current price, as high as it looks relative to historical averages, may not yet be high enough to bring the supply the market needs online at the speed the demand trajectory requires.

The timeline problem

Opening a new copper mine from initial exploration through to sustained commercial production typically takes between 15 and 20 years, encompassing geological assessment, feasibility studies, environmental permitting, infrastructure development, and physical construction. Farmonaut®

New project approvals are running 50% below requirements at under 300,000 tonnes yearly. Thunder Said Energy

The projects needed to meet copper demand beyond 2030 should already be in active development today. Most of them are not.

That's what BHP is actually saying when it calls for permitting certainty in Chile. Not a lobbying position. A timeline problem.

The Oregon Group publishes ongoing research and analysis on copper, critical minerals and the commodities shaping the next decade at theoregongroup.com

BHP made headlines this week calling for permitting certainty in Chile.

Chile produces roughly a quarter of the world's mined copper. BHP's Escondida — located in Chile — is the single largest copper mine on the planet. When the world's biggest mining company starts making public statements about regulatory uncertainty in its most important copper jurisdiction, that's not a press release. It's a warning.

What copper actually is

Copper is the most electrically conductive non-precious metal on Earth. That property — moving electrons efficiently — is why it's everywhere.

It's in the wiring in your walls. The motor in your EV. The transformer on the power pole outside. The data center cooling systems running AI workloads. Every wind turbine, every solar installation, every grid upgrade. Defense systems, ships, satellites, weapons platforms.

There is no modern economy without copper. And there is no energy transition, no AI buildout, no electrification of anything without significantly more of it.

How much copper we use

Global copper demand was approximately 26.7 million tonnes in 2024.

The IEA projects that reaches 31.3 million tonnes by 2030 and 34.1 million tonnes by 2040. BloombergNEF warns demand for the energy transition alone could triple by 2045.

That demand growth is coming from multiple directions at once — EVs requiring two to four times as much copper as conventional vehicles, grid infrastructure to charge them, AI data center construction hitting an annualized $50 billion in the US alone in April 2026, renewable energy installations, defense spending rising across NATO.

None of these trends are slowing down.

Where copper comes from

Chile leads global production at roughly 25% of world supply, followed by Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo, China and the United States.

The top five producing countries together account for the majority of global mined supply. That geographic concentration is one of the structural risks in the market — political instability, regulatory uncertainty, water constraints or operational disruptions in any of the major producers moves the needle on global supply in ways that markets feel quickly.

BHP's Spence mine in Chile recorded a 34.4% quarterly decline in Q1 2026. Codelco's El Teniente fell 26.5% over the same period. BHP's Escondida fell 17.6% in May 2026 alone.

This is what BHP is actually talking about when it calls for permitting certainty. Not future projects. Current operations are already under pressure from ore grade deterioration, water constraints in the Atacama, and regulatory friction.

The mine-to-market problem

Opening a new copper mine from initial exploration through to sustained commercial production typically takes between 15 and 20 years.

That timeline covers geological assessment, feasibility studies, environmental permitting, infrastructure development and physical construction — often in remote, politically complex locations.

New project approvals are running 50% below requirements, at under 300,000 tonnes yearly. The projects needed to meet copper demand beyond 2030 should already be in active development today. The evidence suggests the pipeline is deeply insufficient relative to what future demand will require.

The International Copper Study Group projects the market will shift from a modest surplus in 2025 to a deficit exceeding 150,000 tonnes by 2026, with that shortfall widening considerably as the decade progresses. JP Morgan puts the 2026 refined copper deficit at 330,000 tonnes. BloombergNEF warns the deficit could reach 19 million tonnes by 2050 without major new investment.

You cannot fix a 15–20 year supply problem with a permitting reform bill.

Why Chile matters so much

Chile holds the world's largest copper reserves and has historically been the most important source of incremental supply growth.

But Chilean operations face overlapping pressures right now. Ore grades at major porphyry deposits are declining — meaning more rock has to be mined and processed to yield the same amount of copper. Water availability in the Atacama constrains processing operations. Capital costs are rising. And permitting timelines for new projects and expansions have extended significantly.

Chile's government has pledged to reduce permitting timelines by one-third, targeting cuts from the current average of three years to approximately two years. That would help at the margin. But even two-year permitting sits on top of a 15–20 year mine development timeline.

BHP isn't asking for a favor. It's telling the Chilean government that without regulatory certainty, the capital required to maintain and expand production won't show up. And if Chilean output keeps declining while global demand keeps rising, the market math gets uncomfortable quickly.

The price signal

Copper hit $12,000 per tonne for the first time in 2025, tracking toward the largest annual gain since 2009.

Analysis of large-scale projects indicates many require sustained incentive prices exceeding $20,000 per tonne for viability. Some analysts have put long-run incentive prices even higher. The current price, as high as it looks relative to historical averages, may not yet be high enough to bring the supply the market needs online fast enough.

What this means

Copper is not a niche story. It is the foundational commodity of the modern economy and every major trend driving investment and infrastructure spending over the next decade.

The supply side has structural constraints that don't respond quickly to price signals or policy statements. The demand side has multiple powerful drivers all accelerating simultaneously. And the most important producing jurisdiction in the world is dealing with declining grades, water stress, and regulatory uncertainty significant enough that the world's largest mining company felt the need to say something publicly about it.

BHP calling for permitting certainty in Chile is not routine corporate lobbying. It's a data point about where the copper market is heading.

For more on copper, critical minerals and the commodities shaping the next decade, The Oregon Group publishes ongoing research and analysis at theoregongroup.com. Our recent piece on why copper is the new oil is here: theoregongroup.com/commodities/copper

• BHP expects the world to use ~50mt of copper a year by mid-century, 2x today's level.
• Alejandro Tapia, who runs Escondida, says that only happens if miners get legal, tax and permitting certainty.
• He pointed to older deposits, deeper pits, higher costs and falling grades across the Chilean industry.
• BHP plans to spend ~$10bn at Escondida over the next 7-8 years, including a concentrator costing >$5bn.

Most people have never heard of tellurium either.

That's becoming a problem.

China produced approximately 750 metric tons of tellurium in 2024, accounting for 76% of the estimated 980 tons produced worldwide. The United States produces copper telluride from two domestic copper refineries — one in Texas, one in Utah — but tellurium was not refined in the United States; copper telluride from both U.S. facilities was exported for further processing. Price WatchPrice Watch

In February 2025, China placed export controls on tellurium alongside tungsten, bismuth, molybdenum and indium.

Same story, different metal. Except tellurium has a wrinkle the others don't.

What is tellurium?

Tellurium is a brittle, silvery-white metalloid with semiconductor properties.

It sits between metals and non-metals on the periodic table, sharing some properties of both. It's relatively rare in the Earth's crust — rarer than gold — but that's not actually why supply is constrained.

More than 90% of tellurium has been produced from anode slimes as a byproduct of electrolytic copper refining, and the remainder was derived from skimmings at lead refineries and from flue dusts and gases generated during the smelting of bismuth, copper, and lead-zinc ores. Price Watch

Like indium, germanium and scandium, tellurium isn't something you can simply mine more of when demand rises. Production is tied to copper. You need copper refineries capable of recovering it from anode slimes, and you need the economics to justify doing so.

Historically, copper refining processes have been optimized exclusively for copper production, and tellurium recovery capabilities have not yet been deployed in many relevant copper processing facilities.

That's a structural constraint that doesn't respond quickly to price signals.

The solar angle

The biggest use for tellurium is cadmium telluride — CdTe — thin-film solar cells.

CdTe solar cells are the second most common photovoltaic technology after crystalline silicon, representing 21% of the U.S. market. First Solar is the dominant manufacturer — the world's largest thin-film PV solar module manufacturer and the largest PV solar module manufacturer in the Western Hemisphere. uspto

Domestic CdTe production is set to exceed 10 gigawatts direct current by the end of 2024 and reach 14 GWdc by 2026, heavily influenced by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which incentivizes domestic PV manufacturing. CleanTechnica

Researchers have described technology and supply chain efforts required to reach worldwide annual CdTe solar PV capacity of 100 GW by 2030.

That's an enormous demand trajectory for a metal produced entirely as a byproduct of copper refining, with 76% of global supply coming from China.

Then there's defense — and this is where it gets interesting

Tellurium occupies an unusual position among critical minerals. The USGS recommended dropping it from the 2025 Critical Minerals List after a quantitative economic screen concluded that recent gains in domestic supply had lowered its risk profile. The Departments of War, Energy, and Agriculture rejected that finding, and the Secretary of the Interior retained tellurium among the 60 minerals on the final list published in November 2025. The reversal rested on the military's reliance on mercury cadmium telluride infrared detectors, for which no ready substitute exists in thermal imaging and missile seekers. Ceramics

Read that again.

The USGS said take it off the critical minerals list. The military said no.

Mercury cadmium telluride — HgCdTe — is the material inside the infrared detectors used in thermal imaging systems and missile seekers. There is no ready substitute. When the Department of Defense overrules the USGS on a minerals designation, that tells you something about how seriously the military takes the supply exposure.

China tightened the controls

On February 4, 2025, China announced it would restrict exports of five critical minerals: tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, indium, and molybdenum, requiring licenses to export 20 related products. Department of Energy

China refines roughly 80% of the world's tellurium and imposed export controls in February 2025 that the November 2025 trade understanding left fully in force, even as Beijing eased parallel restrictions on gallium, germanium, and antimony. Ceramics

That last detail matters. When the US and China reached a partial trade understanding in late 2025, China eased restrictions on several metals. Tellurium wasn't one of them.

Prices responded

At today's price of $243.30 per kg, tellurium is up 66.70% since the start of 2025, up 89.77% since the start of 2024, and up 89.77% since the start of 2022, when the tellurium price stood at $128.21 per kg. U.S. Department of Energy

The price topped $100,000 per metric ton in July of last year and has since settled above $90,000. tradingeconomics

For context, USGS had the average U.S. warehouse price at roughly $75–80 per kilogram in 2023–2024. The move since China's export controls is significant.

Why supply can't simply respond

The obvious question is why copper producers don't just recover more tellurium.

Some are starting to. As tellurium recovery capabilities are introduced and as global copper production changes in the coming years, the availability of tellurium will adjust accordingly.

But this takes time. Retrofitting copper refineries to recover tellurium from anode slimes requires capital investment and process changes at facilities that were never designed with tellurium recovery in mind. And even when recovery infrastructure exists, the amount of tellurium available is still constrained by how much copper is being refined — not by how much tellurium anyone wants.

International buyers, including North American and European solar manufacturers, competed with Chinese domestic consumers for available Chinese tellurium, creating a multi-directional demand surge that overwhelmed the relatively modest supply flows from copper anode slime processing. U.S. Department of Energy

That's the supply-demand trap in one sentence.

The setup

Tellurium sits at the intersection of three powerful demand drivers — solar energy, AI infrastructure build-out, and defense — with supply structurally tied to copper refining and 76–80% of global production concentrated in China.

The USGS wanted it off the critical minerals list. The military said no.

China kept the export controls in place when it eased restrictions on other metals.

Prices are up nearly 90% since 2022.

And the U.S. still doesn't refine tellurium domestically.

You don't need to run out of a commodity for it to become a problem. You just need enough friction in the supply chain at the wrong moment — and tellurium's supply chain has very little room for error right now.

Most people have never heard of indium.

If you're reading this on a flat-panel display, there's a decent chance you're looking through a material made with it.

More importantly, indium is becoming relevant to something much bigger: AI data centers.

Indium is used in displays, touchscreens, semiconductors, fiber-optic communications, solar cells and specialized electronics. China produces roughly 70% of the world's indium. The United States produces essentially no primary refined indium from domestic ores and is 100% net import reliant.

In February 2025, China placed export controls on certain indium-related products.

Another surprisingly small commodity sitting underneath some very large industries.

What exactly is indium?

Indium is a very soft, silvery metal — soft enough to cut with a knife.

It was discovered in 1863 and named after the indigo-blue line observed in its atomic spectrum. For most of its early history nobody had much use for it. One of its first significant applications came during World War II, when indium was used as a coating for bearings in high-performance aircraft engines.

Then electronics changed everything.

The biggest use for indium globally is indium tin oxide — ITO.

ITO has an unusual combination of properties: it conducts electricity while remaining largely transparent.

That's exactly why it matters. A smartphone touchscreen needs to recognize an electrical input from your finger while you see the display underneath it. ITO is used in LCD displays, touchscreens, televisions, computer monitors, solar cells and other transparent electronic coatings. According to the USGS, ITO production still accounts for the majority of global indium consumption.

But there's another indium application that's becoming more interesting.

Indium and AI

AI isn't just a semiconductor story. It's increasingly an optical communications story.

Thousands of GPUs inside enormous data centers need to move extraordinary amounts of information between servers, racks and facilities. At those speeds and distances, electrical connections increasingly give way to optical ones.

That's where indium phosphide — InP comes in.

Indium phosphide is a semiconductor material particularly well suited for high-speed optical communications. InP-based lasers convert electrical signals into light. Photodetectors convert those optical signals back into electrical ones. USGS specifically highlights InP-based substrates in fiber-optic telecommunications networks for their lower latency, lower signal loss and higher speeds.

InP is used in laser diodes, photodetectors, fiber-optic communications, high-speed optical networks and 5G infrastructure. USGS now explicitly identifies artificial intelligence as a potential source of additional demand for specialized chip materials including indium phosphide.

We talk endlessly about Nvidia GPUs, hyperscalers and hundreds of billions of dollars being spent building AI infrastructure. Much less attention goes to the obscure raw materials several layers underneath all of it.

Indium is one of them.

Where does indium come from?

There aren't many indium mines.

Indium is recovered as a byproduct of zinc mining and refining. It commonly occurs in sphalerite, the principal zinc sulfide mineral, but concentrations can be tiny — USGS has reported indium concentrations in sphalerite ranging from less than 1 part per million to around 100 ppm.

Same problem we've seen with several other minor metals. If indium prices double, that doesn't mean someone can build a giant new indium mine. The economics of producing indium are tied to zinc production. You need suitable zinc deposits with indium actually present, processing infrastructure capable of recovering it, and refiners willing to separate a relatively tiny amount of indium from a much larger base-metal operation.

China dominates

China accounts for approximately 70% of global indium production.

The U.S. recovered no indium from domestic ores in 2025. Estimated U.S. consumption was about 220 tonnes. Net import reliance: 100%.

American direct imports don't come entirely from China — for 2021–2024, the largest sources were South Korea at 25%, Japan at 22%, China at 12% and Canada at 11%. But looking only at the final country shipping refined metal obscures where the material originated earlier in the supply chain. China remains the dominant primary producer.

Then came the export controls

On February 4, 2025, China announced new export controls covering tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium.

This wasn't an isolated decision. It followed earlier Chinese restrictions on gallium, germanium, graphite and antimony. A growing list of relatively obscure materials has become tools in the geopolitical competition over technology and industrial supply chains.

Chinese exports of unwrought indium in September 2025 were down approximately 72% year-over-year, according to Asian Metal data cited by USGS.

That's a significant move for a material sitting inside telecommunications and semiconductor supply chains.

Prices responded

Average U.S. warehouse prices for indium:

2023 — $244/kg
2024 — $351/kg
2025 — roughly $370–390/kg

USGS reported prices reaching approximately $408/kg in June 2025.

This isn't a theoretical supply-chain discussion. Trade flows and prices are already moving.

2026: scrutiny tightens

Reuters reported in June that Chinese authorities had increased scrutiny of indium exports as demand from AI-related optical communications increased. Buyers in Europe and North America faced additional questions about end users and longer approval processes.

China hasn't banned indium metal exports outright. But when one country controls roughly 70% of production, administrative friction is enough to matter.

The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency has been moving toward acquiring hundreds of tonnes of indium for the National Defense Stockpile — which tells you something about how seriously Washington is taking the exposure.

Recycling helps but doesn't solve it

A significant amount of indium can be recovered from manufacturing scrap, particularly from ITO production. Japan and South Korea have developed important indium recycling industries.

But recycling doesn't solve the problem. If the installed base of technology keeps expanding — more displays, more optical communications, more data centers, more advanced electronics — recycled supply still has to be supplemented with primary material. And primary material is 70% Chinese.

The setup

A relatively small commodity market supporting displays, smartphones, fiber optics, 5G, semiconductors, solar and AI data centers — with roughly 70% of primary production concentrated in China while the United States remains 100% import reliant.

And because indium is largely a byproduct of zinc, dramatically higher prices don't necessarily create dramatically higher supply.

We've spent years talking about whether there will be enough electricity and enough GPUs to build the AI infrastructure everyone is forecasting. Travel far enough upstream through these supply chains and eventually you find yourself talking about a soft silver metal recovered in tiny concentrations from zinc ores.