IEA data shows critical minerals investment fell 9% in 2025 even as demand keeps climbing. An ABB executive argues upgrading mines already producing, not just building new ones, can add supply faster.
At a glance
- ABB executive Joachim Braun argues in a September 21 Mining Technology opinion piece that boosting output at mines already in production can add critical minerals supply faster than building new ones, which can take years to permit and construct.
- The IEA's Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 found investment in new critical minerals supply fell 9% in 2025 even as demand from clean technologies kept climbing.
- Battery metals took the sharpest capital-spending hit -- down more than 20%, the worst in over a decade -- with lithium company investment cut by around 40%; copper-focused spending rose 8% over the same period.
- Lithium's share of demand coming from clean technologies is projected to rise from 62% in 2024 to 87% by 2040; nickel's clean-tech demand share is projected to climb from 17% to 42%.
What happened
An opinion piece published on Mining Technology on September 21 makes the case that the fastest way to add critical minerals supply right now is not a new mine, but a better-run one. Joachim Braun, global division president of ABB's process industries division, argues that operations already in production hold a structural advantage new projects don't: they already have "resources being extracted, infrastructure in place and established routes to market," while permitting and building a new mine typically takes years. His argument lands against a backdrop the International Energy Agency's Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 quantifies directly: investment in new critical minerals supply fell 9% in 2025, with capital spending on battery metals down more than 20% -- the sharpest pullback in over a decade -- and lithium-focused investment cut by around 40%, even as demand from clean technologies keeps rising. Braun's prescription is three technology levers: electrification, digitalisation and automation, and condition-monitoring-based predictive maintenance. As a working example, he points to ABB's own role powering Vulcan Energy's Lionheart lithium project in Germany.
The details
Braun's argument rests on a timing gap the industry rarely states this plainly: demand for battery metals is rising on a schedule new mines cannot match. A greenfield lithium or nickel project routinely needs the better part of a decade to move from discovery through permitting, financing and construction before it ships a single tonne. A mine or processing plant already running has already cleared every one of those hurdles. Squeezing more tonnes out of it -- even a modest percentage more -- doesn't require a new environmental approval or a new offtake agreement, which is why Braun frames it as the faster lever, not necessarily the bigger one.
The three levers he names work on different parts of the same problem. Electrification swaps diesel-driven equipment for electric drives, cutting energy losses and emissions at once. Digitalisation and automation connect equipment and process data that mines have traditionally managed in separate silos, giving operators visibility into exactly where ore, energy or throughput is being lost between the pit and the port. Condition monitoring and predictive maintenance use sensor data to flag a failing component before it fails, converting an unplanned shutdown into a scheduled one. None of these change what's in the ground; all three change how much of what's already being extracted actually reaches a buyer.
The example Braun reaches for, ABB's roughly $50 million in electrical contracts on Vulcan Energy's Lionheart project in Germany, illustrates the technology stack more than it proves the brownfield thesis. Lionheart is a new build, not an existing mine being upgraded -- it draws lithium from geothermal brine in the Upper Rhine Valley using direct extraction rather than open-pit mining, targeting 24,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium hydroxide a year once its Landau and Frankfurt-Höchst plants are running in 2028. What it does demonstrate is that ABB is already selling exactly the electrification and automation package Braun's piece recommends, on a project it has a direct commercial stake in -- worth noting, since it means the prescription and the pitch are the same thing.
That overlap doesn't undercut the IEA numbers underneath the argument. A 9% drop in new critical-minerals investment, with battery-metals capital spending down more than 20% and lithium investment cut by around 40%, is a real financing gap opening up at the same time clean-tech demand for lithium is projected to nearly double as a share of total demand by 2040. Whether brownfield efficiency gains can close a meaningful share of that gap is a separate question the opinion piece doesn't quantify with a single output or recovery-rate figure of its own -- it argues the case in principle, using a vendor's project list as evidence, rather than reporting a study of what technology upgrades have actually added at a producing mine.
Why it matters
Most critical minerals coverage this month has focused on either finding new supply -- new mines, new trade pacts, new blocks up for auction -- or on replacing demand altogether through substitute materials. Braun's piece names a third lever that sits between those two: get more out of the capacity that's already producing. For anyone watching lithium and nickel prices for signs of the supply gap easing, that's a genuinely different mechanism to track than a new mine's permitting timeline or a substitute material's certification pathway -- it's a bet on efficiency gains at assets that already exist, funded by capital that fell rather than grew in 2025. Whether that bet pays off in measurable tonnes is the open question worth watching, not the argument itself.
Our read
Outlook: neutral. This is an opinion piece arguing a strategy, not a reported supply, demand or trade event -- there is no immediate change to lithium, nickel or copper supply or pricing from the piece itself. Its relevance is medium-to-long-term: if electrification, automation and predictive-maintenance investment scales broadly across mines already in production, it could gradually add incremental supply and ease price pressure, but the piece offers no output or recovery-rate figures to size that effect, keeping the near-term price impact neutral.
What to watch
- Whether battery-metals capital spending recovers from 2025's pullback, when it fell more than 20% and lithium-focused investment was cut by around 40%, per the IEA
- Progress at Vulcan Energy's Lionheart project toward its 2028 target of 24,000 tonnes a year of lithium hydroxide
- Whether any mine operator publishes an actual output or recovery-rate figure tied to electrification, automation or predictive-maintenance investment, since Braun's piece argues the case without citing one
For information only, not investment advice.
Lithium price in India
metalscost.com India reference price as of 2026-10-03.
Detailed analysis
Timeline
- 2026-07-19: The IEA's Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 reported that investment in new critical minerals supply fell 9% in 2025 even as demand from clean technologies kept climbing.
- 2026-09-21: ABB's Joachim Braun published an opinion piece on Mining Technology arguing that boosting output at mines already in production can add critical minerals supply faster than building new ones.
- 2028-01-01: Vulcan Energy's Lionheart project, cited in the piece as a working example, is targeting first lithium hydroxide production from its Phase One plants in Landau and Frankfurt-Höchst.
Demand Drivers
Lithium's share of total demand coming from clean technologies is projected to rise from 62% in 2024 to 87% by 2040, and nickel's clean-tech demand share is projected to climb from 17% to 42% over the same period, according to the IEA's Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 -- the widening gap between rising demand and falling investment is the backdrop for Braun's existing-mines argument.
Supply Drivers
Braun's piece argues that electrification, digitalisation and automation, and predictive maintenance can add incremental output at mines and processing plants already in production, offering a faster supply lever than new-mine construction, which typically takes years to permit and build.
Mining Production
Investment in new critical minerals supply fell 9% in 2025, per the IEA's Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026, with battery-metals capital spending down more than 20% -- the sharpest pullback in over a decade -- and lithium-focused investment cut by around 40%; copper-focused company spending rose 8% over the same period, reflecting more confidence in copper's near-term outlook than in battery metals.
What could lift prices
- Upgrading a mine already in production avoids the multi-year permitting and construction timeline a new mine requires, meaning any output gains could reach the market far sooner than new supply.
- The technology levers described are already being commercially deployed at scale -- ABB's roughly $50 million in contracts on Vulcan Energy's Lionheart project shows real capital committed to this approach, not just a theoretical case.
What could weigh on prices
- The prescription comes from a vendor whose own equipment -- electrification, automation and predictive-maintenance systems -- is exactly what the piece recommends buying, and it cites no site-specific recovery-rate or output figure to quantify the actual supply gain from any mine.
- The 2025 investment pullback itself -- battery-metals capital spending down more than 20% and lithium investment cut by around 40% -- shrinks the capital pool available to fund the very upgrades Braun is describing, at the same operations that would need to pay for them.
- Braun's own headline example, Lionheart, is a new project still under construction and targeting first production only in 2028, which weakens "existing mines" as a description of where the near-term supply gain is actually meant to come from.
Country impact
| Country | Impact | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Germany | Low | Vulcan Energy's Lionheart project, cited in the opinion piece as a working example of the technology approach, is being built in Germany's Upper Rhine Valley, with plants in Landau and Frankfurt-Höchst. |
Industry impact
| Industry | Effect | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Mining | Positive | Electrification, automation and predictive maintenance are framed as ways for mining and processing operators to add output and cut unplanned downtime without the multi-year timeline of a new project. |
| Electric Vehicles | Positive | Faster-growing lithium and nickel supply from existing operations would ease the raw-material constraint behind rising EV battery costs, though the piece offers no output figures to quantify how much supply this approach could actually add. |
Who gains, who loses
- Industrial automation and electrification vendors like ABB: A broader push to upgrade existing mines with electrification, automation and predictive-maintenance systems would expand the market for exactly the equipment and contracts these vendors sell -- ABB's own Lionheart deal shows this is already a live revenue line, not just a policy argument.
- Lithium and nickel buyers, if brownfield efficiency gains fall short: Battery and EV manufacturers counting on faster supply growth to ease lithium and nickel costs would be exposed if efficiency upgrades at existing mines don't scale quickly enough to offset the 2025 pullback in new-project investment.
Other ways this could play out
- If electrification, automation and predictive-maintenance investment scales broadly across producing mines, it could meaningfully narrow the near-term critical minerals supply gap while new mines -- which can take years to permit and build -- work through their own pipeline.
- If capital keeps shifting away from battery metals as it did in 2025, brownfield efficiency upgrades could go underfunded at the same operations that would need to pay for them, leaving supply growth largely dependent on the slower new-mine pipeline Braun argues is insufficient on its own.
Price risks
- If efficiency upgrades at existing mines add meaningful incremental supply, it could gradually ease upward price pressure on lithium and nickel without waiting for new mines to come online.
- If the 2025 pullback in battery-metals investment continues, both new-mine construction and existing-mine efficiency upgrades could remain underfunded at once, leaving supply growth more exposed to demand swings from EV and clean-tech adoption.
Historical comparison
- 2024 vs. 2025: The world's top 40 mining companies' combined revenue rose 3.3% to $909 billion in 2025 from $880 billion in 2024, even as investment in new critical minerals supply fell 9% over the same period, according to PwC and IEA data.
Technical view
Price is trading below both its 20-period and 50-period moving averages, a bearish alignment.
Computed from metalscost.com's own stored price history.
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