Bryan Bille

Hakainde Hichilema was declared president-elect of Zambia on 18 August. Hichilema was re-elected after securing nearly 3 million votes, more than 1.1 million votes ahead of his opponent, Brian Mundubile of the NRPUP, and comfortably above the 50% threshold required to avoid a run-off. "The result is expected to deliver policy and geopolitical continuity, including the continuation of the beneficiation agenda set out in Zambia's 2024 critical minerals strategy," said Benchmark's lead policy and geopolitical analyst Bryan Bille. Copper is a crucial export for Zambia, accounting for around three-quarters of the total value of the country’s exports. Mined production in 2026 is estimated at 901kt, a healthy growth of 11% over last year, as assessed by Benchmark’s Copper Service. The Zambian government is aiming to increase output to 3Mtpa by 2031.

The greater deployment of drones is having a profound impact on the modern battlefield and has put the geopolitics of the battery supply chain into a new spotlight. In 2025, drones accounted for 39.2% of defence demand for batteries, according to Benchmark. This is up from just 20% in 2020. Soldier power and bases are the two next largest drivers of defence demand for batteries. "Drones have clearly risen to be the most influential aspect of modern military battery demand,” said Will Roberts, Benchmark’s automotive research lead.  “Major militaries are still just getting started in their strategic investments relating to them which is about to set off a flurry of activity to domesticate supply chains, something which is getting significant attention from major battery manufacturers and new entrants alike."

Bryan Bille, Benchmark's lead policy and geopolitical analyst, attended Part II of the International Seabed Authority's (ISA) 31st session in Kingston, Jamaica, from 23–29 July. On 24 July, the ISA Council concluded two weeks of negotiations without adopting the International Mining Code, the framework required for commercial extraction from the seabed in international waters. Key issues, including environmental safeguards, liability, inspection, and benefit-sharing, remain unresolved. Experts expect negotiations to continue for at least another three to four years before an overall agreement can be reached.

The US government has signed nearly $2 billion in deals looking to strengthen the US’s supply chain security for critical minerals and technologies. The capital takes multiple forms from equity loans to direct investments. The largest is a $1.4 billion conditional loan to Sila Nanotechnologies, a US-based silicon anode company. The company currently operates a facility in Moses Lake, Washington with plans for a second phase of production towards the end of the decade. This latest round of funding builds on the plethora of investments the US has made in the battery and critical mineral space over the course of Donald Trump’s second presidency such as investing in MP Materials’ rare earths project and Ivanhoe Electric’s Santa Cruz copper project. “While the Trump Administration continues to invest in critical minerals, know-how, and strategic technologies to build a mine-to-magnet supply chain, these recent investment announcements also reflect the US ambition to build a next-generation mine-to-battery supply chain to reduce its dependence on China,” said Bryan Bille, Benchmark’s policy and geopolitics principal.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the world’s leading supplier of mined cobalt, supplying three quarters of 2025 cobalt, and is the second largest supplier of mined copper, supplying 15% in 2025. Its transformation into a major supplier of both minerals follows significant investment from China over the last 15 years. The DRC is also home to one of the world’s largest hard rock lithium deposits, the Manono site in the country’s Tanganyika Province. It recently started operating. Manono North, owned by Zijin, is currently operating and has an eventual planned capacity of 120ktpa. A separate, AVZ-owned and CATL-backed Manono project is due to come online in 2032, with a planned capacity of 90ktpa.

The US has taken a different course to many other major economies on the energy transition in general, and electric vehicles (EVs) in particular, since the return of Donald Trump as president in January 2025. In April 2026, EV sales were down 33% year-to-date year-on-year – a mirror image of another major Western economy, Germany, which was up 33% over the same period. What is different about the US?

The European Union still requires significant investment in critical mineral projects if it is to meet the non-binding targets set out in its Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) which came into force in May 2024. The Act set targets for 10% of the bloc’s critical mineral demand to be met by domestic mining, 40% by domestic processing, and 25% by recycling. Further, no more than 65% of demand for one critical mineral should be met by a single country. Benchmark analysis shows that with the exception of lithium and nickel extraction, the bloc is forecast to miss the targets for battery metals across mining, processing and recycling.

The EU Commission's proposed Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) introduces new “Made in EU” stipulations for electric vehicles as part of a range of measures aimed at increasing the manufacturing sector’s share of the bloc’s GDP to 20% by 2035, up from 14.3% in 2024. The act was proposed on Wednesday 4 March after delays and renegotiations pushed its publication to the wire. Further negotiations between the Council and the European Parliament are required before the IAA can be adopted and enter into force. The “Made in EU” rules add tough requirements for automakers looking to benefit from incentive schemes, financial support for corporate vehicles, or public procurement, though there are exceptions for the “small cars” segment.

The Trump Administration’s Project Vault aims to create a strategic reserve of critical minerals, funded by $1.67bn in private capital and a $10bn loan from the US Export-Import Bank. Full details of the reserve have yet to be announced, though the aim is reportedly to build up strategic stocks equivalent to 60 days of demand of selected minerals to protect industries such as automotive and renewable energy against future critical mineral supply shocks and price swings. At today’s prices and based on 2026 demand, this would cost $991 million for key battery minerals (lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite and coke), with lithium being the largest contributor.

Estonian startup UP Catalyst is turning CO₂ emissions into battery-grade graphite. As one of the 47 strategic projects selected under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) and with funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB), UP Catalyst’s twin mission is to help Europe reduce its dependence on Chinese graphite and address decarbonisation. Following a...