China's Chokehold on Global Mineral Refining

The processing gap is the most important structural story in critical minerals, and the most misunderstood.

China controls refining and processing of 19 of the 20 strategic minerals tracked by the IEA, with average share above 70% across the battery complex. Concentration is intensifying, not easing. The 2026 copper TC/RC benchmark settled at US$0/t, the lowest on record, a mechanism quietly destroying non-Chinese smelting capacity. The supply deficits arrive from 2029. The processing facilities needed to address them take 10 to 17 years to build.

This report quantifies the gap, maps where capital is already moving, and identifies where it isn't.

What's inside

• China's processing share across eight strategic minerals, with facility-level validation from the S&P Global database (2,419 facilities, 113 countries)

• The TC/RC collapse explained: why Glencore's Pasar, Sinomine's Tsumeb, and Albemarle's Kemerton shut, and which smelters are next

• Mineral-by-mineral analysis across copper, lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earths, with supply-demand forecasts through 2035

• Western response scorecard: US IRA, EU CRMA, Australia's 10% processing credit, Canada's sovereign fund, with an honest read on what's working and what isn't

• China's export control escalation: every material action from August 2023 through October 2025, including the first application of the Foreign Direct Product Rule to mineral inputs

• The venture capital wave: seven technology startups (Phoenix Tailings, Valor, ElectraLith, Novalith, Lithios, Gega, Kunin) attacking the processing bottleneck, with funding detail

• The 17.9-year problem: why the decisions that will determine supply chain sovereignty in 2035 needed to be made in 2018