In 2022, the kingdom staked a claim as a future mining hub with an event called the Future Minerals Forum that has since then been held annually, seeking to boost investment in the desert state’s mineral resources, which appear to be significant and include battery minerals such as lithium and vanadium, along with other transition-important metals such as copper. “If you think about other countries starting to make batteries that haven't been producing batteries before, they are completely constrained and unable to do so because all of today's battery materials – while they are actually sourced globally, with the exception of graphite – they are all refined and processed in China,” the chief executive of a company called Pure Lithium told The National this week. “By leapfrogging the current lithium-ion technology with lithium metal technology, we can circumvent Chinese dominance of the supply chain,” Emilie Bodoin also told the publication, referring to a significant concern of countries that want to reduce their dependence on hydrocarbons but not replace it with a new dependence on materials sourced from China.
Author: Charles Kennedy
Published at: 2026-03-31 23:00:00
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