IEEFA Releases Briefing Note About India’s Critial Minerals
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) released a briefing note that looks at India’s import data of five critical minerals for the period FY2019-FY2025, offering a perspective on the trade dynamics, price fluctuations, and market conditions shaping India’s critical mineral supply chain. The briefing note is titled ‘India’s critical mineral imports in 2025 and a shift towards supply diversification’ and looks at five minerals that are used in renewable energy technologies.
Authored by Kaira Rakheja and Saloni Sachdeva Michael, the briefing note builds on IEEFA’S 2024 report ‘India’s hunt for critical minerals’, extending the timeline to FY 2025. Of the 30 minerals deemed critical by the central government, the report looks at five minerals viz., cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium, and nickel and their compounds.
The briefing note has posited that India’s imports of minerals and their compounds is concentrated, and this poses significant supply risks. It also underscores the importance of diversification to enhance supply security. Protectionist and industrial policies by supplier countries like China, Indonesia, the US, the European Union and Japan have are impacting India’s imports, the briefing note points out, and exposing India’s vulnerability to concentration risks and supply disruptions.
The briefing note has pointed out that India’s import data reflects a clear intent to diversify supply sources and build more resilient supply chains through international cooperation. It recognizes a need to strengthen collaboration in skills development, joint exploration and mining, technology transfer and scaled research and development. Talking about this, one of the authors of the briefing note, Kaira Rakheja, said, ““Addressing this will require more than conventional government-to-government agreements. Building resilient supply chains will require long-term, structured partnerships that extend into industry collaboration.”
Another co-author, Saloni Sachdeva Michael, said, “The country is making efforts to achieve this via diplomacy, trade agreements, and international cooperation to diversify its sources and reduce supply vulnerabilities. Its approach to partnerships spans both bilateral and multilateral, varying in scope and depth.”
The briefing note can be downloaded from the IEEFA website.
