Critical Minerals

Critical minerals are raw materials considered particularly important to an economy, industry or national security, often because their supply chains are vulnerable to disruption.

There is no single global definition of a critical mineral. Governments and economic blocs maintain their own classifications based on factors such as economic importance, import dependence, supply concentration, industrial requirements, defence applications and the requirements of the energy transition.

A commodity can therefore be considered critical in one market but not another.

Global Mining Dataset brings these classifications together to provide a consistent view of the strategic relevance of the commodities associated with each mining asset.

Critical mineral status identifies whether one or more commodities associated with an asset appear on the selected critical-mineral reference lists.

For example, an asset containing lithium may be identified as relevant to several markets, while another commodity may only appear on the critical-mineral lists of particular countries.

This allows users to screen the Asset Universe according to the strategic mineral priorities of different markets rather than relying on a single global definition of criticality.

Critical-mineral classifications provide additional strategic context beyond the geological or commercial characteristics of an asset.

Governments are increasingly using critical-mineral policies to address supply-chain resilience, industrial strategy, energy security, defence requirements and the availability of materials required for advanced technologies.

For mining companies, investors, governments and researchers, understanding these classifications can help identify assets that may be relevant to:

• Critical-mineral supply chains
• Energy-transition technologies
• Industrial and manufacturing strategy
• Domestic supply security
• Import diversification
• Government policy and investment priorities
• Strategic partnerships and offtake
• Defence and advanced technologies

Critical-mineral status should be viewed as a measure of strategic commodity relevance, rather than an assessment of the quality or economics of an individual mining asset.

Global Mining Dataset currently provides critical-mineral context across a selection of major mining, industrial and commodity markets.

Because definitions differ between jurisdictions, the classifications should always be interpreted against the relevant official framework.

The United States defines critical minerals in the context of economic and national security and vulnerability to supply-chain disruption.

The final 2025 List of Critical Minerals contains 60 minerals and was developed using an updated methodology assessing the potential economic effects of mineral supply disruptions.

The list includes commodities important across sectors such as energy, defence, semiconductors, transportation, communications and advanced manufacturing.

2025 U.S. Critical Minerals

Aluminum, Antimony, Arsenic, Barite, Beryllium, Bismuth, Boron, Cerium, Cesium, Chromium, Cobalt, Copper, Dysprosium, Erbium, Europium, Fluorspar, Gadolinium, Gallium, Germanium, Graphite, Hafnium, Holmium, Indium, Iridium, Lanthanum, Lead, Lithium, Lutetium, Magnesium, Manganese, Metallurgical Coal, Neodymium, Nickel, Niobium, Palladium, Phosphate, Platinum, Potash, Praseodymium, Rhenium, Rhodium, Rubidium, Ruthenium, Samarium, Scandium, Silicon, Silver, Tantalum, Tellurium, Terbium, Thulium, Tin, Titanium, Tungsten, Uranium, Vanadium, Ytterbium, Yttrium, Zinc and Zirconium.

The European Union identifies Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) based primarily on their economic importance and exposure to supply risk.

The 2023 assessment identifies 34 critical raw materials. A subset is also classified as Strategic Raw Materials, reflecting their importance to strategic technologies and expected demand growth.

The EU framework is particularly relevant to technologies associated with renewable energy, electrification, digitalisation, aerospace and defence.

Some EU entries represent groups of materials, such as heavy rare earth elements, light rare earth elements and platinum group metals. Global Mining Dataset may map these groups to individual commodities within the Asset Universe to support asset-level matching.

2023 EU Critical Raw Materials

Aluminium/Bauxite, Antimony, Arsenic, Baryte, Beryllium, Bismuth, Boron/Borates, Cobalt, Coking Coal, Copper, Feldspar, Fluorspar, Gallium, Germanium, Hafnium, Helium, Heavy Rare Earth Elements, Light Rare Earth Elements, Lithium, Magnesium, Manganese, Natural Graphite, Nickel — battery grade, Niobium, Phosphate Rock, Phosphorus, Platinum Group Metals, Scandium, Silicon Metal, Strontium, Tantalum, Titanium Metal, Tungsten and Vanadium.

The UK maintains its own critical-mineral assessment reflecting the importance of minerals to the UK economy and the vulnerability of their supply.

The current UK classification contains 34 critical minerals, based on the Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre's 2024 Criticality Assessment.

The UK also identifies a separate group of growth minerals considered important to sectors expected to drive future economic growth.

UK Critical Minerals

Aluminium, Antimony, Bismuth, Borates, Cobalt, Gallium, Germanium, Hafnium, Helium, Indium, Iridium, Iron, Lithium, Magnesite, Magnesium, Manganese, Natural Graphite, Nickel, Niobium, Phosphorus, Platinum, Rare Earth Elements, Rhenium, Rhodium, Ruthenium, Silicon, Sodium, Tantalum, Tellurium, Tin, Titanium, Tungsten, Vanadium and Zinc.

Australia maintains both a Critical Minerals List and a Strategic Materials List.

The Australian framework considers the importance of minerals to modern technologies, the economy and national security, alongside vulnerabilities in their supply chains.

Australia's classifications are particularly relevant given the country's role as a major producer and prospective supplier of minerals required for energy, advanced manufacturing and strategic applications.

Australian Critical Minerals

High-purity Alumina, Antimony, Arsenic, Beryllium, Bismuth, Chromium, Cobalt, Fluorine, Gallium, Germanium, Graphite, Hafnium, Indium, Lithium, Magnesium, Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Niobium, Platinum Group Elements, Rare Earth Elements, Rhenium, Scandium, Selenium, Silicon, Tantalum, Tellurium, Tin, Titanium, Tungsten, Vanadium and Zirconium.

India published its first comprehensive Critical Minerals for India assessment in 2023.

The Government identified 30 critical minerals, considering factors including domestic resources and reserves, production, import dependence, requirements for future technologies and clean energy, and the importance of particular materials to the Indian economy.

The classification forms part of India's wider effort to improve the security and resilience of critical-mineral supply.

Indian Critical Minerals

Antimony, Beryllium, Bismuth, Cobalt, Copper, Gallium, Germanium, Graphite, Hafnium, Indium, Lithium, Molybdenum, Niobium, Nickel, Platinum Group Elements, Phosphorous, Potash, Rare Earth Elements, Rhenium, Silicon, Strontium, Tantalum, Tellurium, Tin, Titanium, Tungsten, Vanadium, Zirconium, Selenium and Cadmium.

Japan treats critical minerals as an important component of economic security and industrial supply-chain resilience.

Its policy framework focuses particularly on ensuring stable supplies of mineral resources vulnerable to disruption through measures including overseas resource development, diversification of supply, recycling and strategic stockpiling.

Global Mining Dataset uses the relevant Japanese critical-mineral reference to provide additional strategic context for assets containing these commodities.

Japanese Critical Minerals

Manganese, Nickel, Chromium, Tungsten, Molybdenum, Cobalt, Niobium, Tantalum, Antimony, Lithium, Boron, Titanium, Vanadium, Strontium, Rare Earth Metals, Platinum Group Metals, Beryllium, Gallium, Germanium, Selenium, Rubidium, Zirconium, Indium, Tellurium, Cesium, Barium, Hafnium, Rhenium, Thallium, Bismuth, Graphite, Fluorine, Magnesium, Silicon, Phosphorus and Uranium.

China requires slightly different treatment from the other markets.

Rather than presenting Chinese strategic mineral policy as directly equivalent to a single US- or EU-style critical-minerals list, Global Mining Dataset uses relevant strategic mineral and export-control measures to provide context on commodities subject to particular supply-chain or national-security significance.

China has introduced export controls covering a number of strategically important mineral products, including controls affecting gallium, germanium, graphite, antimony, tungsten and selected rare earth elements.

These classifications should therefore be interpreted as Chinese strategic and export-control context, rather than as a directly comparable national critical-minerals list.

The configured Chinese strategic-mineral context currently includes:

Antimony, Bismuth, Cerium, Dysprosium, Erbium, Europium, Gadolinium, Gallium, Germanium, Graphite, Holmium, Indium, Lanthanum, Lithium, Lutetium, Molybdenum, Neodymium, Praseodymium, Samarium, Tellurium, Terbium, Thulium, Tungsten, Ytterbium and Yttrium.

This classification should be interpreted differently from the formal critical-mineral lists presented for markets such as the United States, European Union and United Kingdom.

South Korea established its current critical-minerals framework in 2023 as part of measures introduced by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) to strengthen the security of critical-mineral supply.

The framework identifies 33 critical minerals for management from an economic-security perspective. Within this group, 10 strategic critical minerals are prioritised for more intensive management because of their importance to high-technology industries, including semiconductors and secondary batteries.

South Korean Critical Minerals

Lithium, Nickel, Cobalt, Manganese, Graphite, Neodymium, Dysprosium, Terbium, Cerium, Lanthanum, Niobium, Copper, Aluminum, Silicon, Magnesium, Molybdenum, Vanadium, Platinum, Palladium, Tin, Titanium, Tungsten, Antimony, Bismuth, Chromium, Lead, Zinc, Gallium, Indium, Tantalum, Zirconium, Strontium and Selenium.

Strategic Critical Minerals

The following 10 minerals receive additional priority within the Korean framework:

Lithium, Nickel, Cobalt, Manganese, Graphite, Neodymium, Dysprosium, Terbium, Cerium and Lanthanum.

The strategic group is particularly relevant to supply chains for batteries, semiconductors and other advanced industries. For asset screening, Global Mining Dataset retains the broader 33-mineral classification while allowing commodities associated with Korea's higher-priority strategic group to be understood within that context.

Official critical-mineral classifications do not always use the same commodity structure as mining datasets.

Some frameworks classify groups such as:

• Rare Earth Elements
• Light Rare Earth Elements
• Heavy Rare Earth Elements
• Platinum Group Metals

A mining asset dataset, by contrast, may identify the individual elements associated with an asset, such as neodymium, dysprosium, platinum or palladium.

Global Mining Dataset normalises these classifications where appropriate so that official grouped categories can be associated with the individual commodities represented within the Asset Universe.

This means that the number of commodity matches represented within Global Mining Dataset may be greater than the number of entries on the original government list.

The underlying official classification remains the reference point.

Critical mineral status is intended to answer a broad screening question:

Does this asset contain commodities considered strategically important within the markets relevant to my analysis?

It can be used to identify and compare assets according to different national or regional strategic priorities.

However, critical-mineral status does not assess:

• Mineral resources or reserves
• Grade or deposit quality
• Production volumes
• Economic viability
• Metallurgical recoverability
• Whether a commodity is the primary product or a by-product
• Current production of the matched commodity
• Permitting or development status
• Ownership or offtake arrangements
• Eligibility for government funding or incentives

An asset containing a critical mineral should therefore not automatically be considered a strategically important project.

The classification indicates that the commodity is strategically relevant to the selected market. The significance of the individual asset depends on its geology, scale, development status, economics and position within the wider supply chain.

Critical-mineral classifications change over time as governments respond to changes in technology, trade, supply concentration and strategic priorities.

Global Mining Dataset maintains references to the underlying market classifications so that critical-mineral status can be interpreted against the relevant source.

Users undertaking analysis where critical-mineral designation is material should refer to the relevant official source for the latest policy position.

• United States: U.S. Geological Survey — 2025 List of Critical Minerals
• European Union: European Commission — Critical Raw Materials
• United Kingdom: UK Government — Critical Minerals Technical Annex
• Australia: Australian Government — Critical Minerals List and Strategic Materials List
• India: Government of India — Critical Minerals for India
• Japan: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry — Critical Minerals
• South Korea: International Energy Agency — Critical Mineral List in Korea
• China: Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China — Export Control