Special Issues

Benchmark analysis shows China leads Asia lithium pricing; CIF Asia’s discount reflects lag and China’s rally, not a structural spread shift.

In this Special Issue, Benchmark examines the rapid growth of data centres and looks at the role BESS is playing and the impact this has on critical minerals.

Following rising conflict in the Middle East including the war in Iran and subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, prices of sulphur and sulphuric acid have skyrocketed. This has had significant impacts on the cost structure of many of the critical minerals vital to the energy transition and defence. Benchmark has collaborated with Acuity for access to their leading sulphur and sulphuric acid prices to support Benchmark’s expert analysis of critical mineral supply chains.

The belief that lithium hydroxide commands a structural premium over lithium carbonate is one of the most pervasive misconceptions in battery materials markets. The logic is intuitive –hydroxide feeds high-nickel NCM cathode chemistry, carbonate feeds LFP, and premium product commands a premium price. The data tells a different story. On an annual average basis, LiOHhas traded above Li2CO₃ in just four of the last nine years, with three of those years being before 2021. Since then, the premium has been either egligible or consistently negative on both EXW China and CIF Asia benchmarks

This Special Issue analyses the potential role of deep-sea mining as a supplementary source of critical minerals amid intensifying global competition for energy security and minerals needed for the clean energy transition, artificial intelligence, defence production, and other high-tech industries, assessing how it compares with terrestrial mining and evaluating its prospects under current regulatory uncertainty, cost competitiveness challenges and shifting demand patterns.

After a year defined by geopolitics, supply shocks, and diverging price signals, 2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for battery and critical materials markets. Policy intervention, delayed supply growth, and uneven demand recovery have reshaped price formation across battery materials – raising a critical question: are markets finally returning to fundamentals, or has a new paradigm emerged? In this whitepaper, Benchmark’s expert analysts unpack the key drivers set to shape 2026, drawing on our market-leading supply chain data and proprietary forecasts to determine what to expect in the year ahead.

US President Trump’s first year in office and his so-called “energy dominance” policy agenda have reshaped the critical mineral, battery and EV supply chains. While the Trump administration has placed significant emphasis on boosting domestic critical mineral production to reduce US supply dependence on China, it has scaled back Biden-era clean energy support through legislative overhauls of the US Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Welcome to Mine to Grid: 2025 Year in Review by Benchmark. This year has been marked by increasing geopolitical tensions, with Donald Trump’s US and Xi Jinping’s China at the epicentre. No stage of the clean energy supply chain has been spared, with market-changing events all the way from upstream mining and battery chemicals through to the deployment of electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

Large portions of global nickel supply are now operating below cash cost. Benchmark data show almost 27% of production is running at a loss at current price levels of around $15,000/t, signalling where cost support is likely to develop if prices fall further and marking clear pressure points along the global cost curve.

The lithium market has shifted from speciality chemical pricing, dominated by fixed, bilateral contracts, to a more commoditized and financially sophisticated structure. Surging demand, especially from the EV sector, drove adoption of index-linked pricing and spot trading, boosting liquidity and standardization. However, extreme volatility between 2021 and 2023 made hedging challenging, as cash flow mismatches and legacy contracts limited participation in derivatives. Over the past 18 months, reduced volatility has fostered greater market stability and increased open interest in lithium derivatives. Yet, significant basis risk has hampered broader use of financial hedging.

While global pre-treatment capacity is widespread, integrated and refining facilities to extract critical battery minerals are unevenly distributed. This undermines battery supply chain localisation efforts, as regions lacking in refining or integrated recovery capacity must export battery scrap or black mass, along with the critical minerals they contain. This map tracks the state of play of the global battery recycling industry as of 2025.

Africa’s rich endowment of critical minerals is positioning the continent as a key player in the global energy transition. While China leads investment, the US and EU seek greater involvement to diversify supply chains. Yet, political risks, infrastructure gaps, and limited value-added manufacturing threaten Africa’s ability to fully benefit. Can African nations move beyond raw material exports to secure lasting economic transformation?

CATL’s suspension of output at its Jianxiawo lithium mine in Jiangxi province — accounting for ~3% of global supply — comes alongside reports of a brief outage at Albemarle’s La Negra chemical plant in Chile after an acid tank explosion. While both events have sparked supply concerns, stockpiled feedstock and limited production impacts suggest fundamentals remain intact. With sentiment already lifting prices, could these disruptions fuel a speculative rally even in the absence of a real supply squeeze?

The 2024–25 lithium price crash has not triggered the mine closures many expected. Unlike the rapid retrenchment of 2020, this downturn is shaped by long-term strategic capital, geopolitical alignment, and vertically integrated supply chains—especially from Chinese and OEM-backed players. Benchmark’s latest 2025 cost curves show that 30% of hard rock and 40% of chemical producers are underwater at current prices, yet production continues. Why?

The defence sector is emerging as a key demand market for critical raw materials (CRMs). They are required not only to enable the increasing role of batteries in electrified military vehicles but also for superalloy materials, rare earth permanent magnets, and advanced technologies. This Special Issue examines the key geopolitical and policy trends surrounding the essential role of CRMs in this sector.

The Trump administration has ordered a Section 232 investigation into the potential national security threat posed by the US' reliance on copper imports. In this Special Issue, Benchmark explores the implications of this from a price and demand perspective.

The economies of many countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are heavily dependent on revenues generated by the oil and gas sector. However, the international push to diversify away from fossil fuels towards more sustainable energy sources is challenging the long-term viability of these economic models. Despite this, the energy transition also presents an unprecedented opportunity to diversify their economic models and maintain relevance on the global stage, especially through increasingly important critical mineral markets.

Battery recycling is key to creating a circular lithium ion battery industry. Recycling can reduce the uneven global distribution of critical minerals, by offering a localised source of secondary supply. However, there are technical, economic and geopolitical challenges to overcome in order to scale the industry up to the level required for recycling to contribute sizeable quantities of regionalised supply. Using Benchmark’s unique data and prices on the global recycling market, this report will provide a comprehensive overview of the state of play of the global recycling market, an understanding of how this market is developing, and insights into what is still required to establish a global lithium ion battery recycling supply chain.

In May's edition of Benchmark's Geo-Economic Briefing, we examine the recent US House bill aimed at rolling back IRA tax credits, as well the key macro economic indicators and other policy updated from around the world.