The 'Energy Playbook' is coming for mining

The global scramble for critical minerals has fundamentally reshaped the investment landscape for the mining sector. The extraction of these resources is at the centre of an intensifying geopolitical contest as governments treat them as strategic assets essential to national security and the energy transition.

A new wave of resource nationalism

State intervention in the mining industry has steadily increased in recent years, driven not by traditional commodity booms but by the geopolitical race for critical energy transition minerals. As a result, states across Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia are enacting measures to increase governmental control over these resources, including outright nationalisation, export bans on unprocessed minerals, mandatory local beneficiation, and forced state equity participation. For instance, Mexico amended its national legislation in April 2022 to declare lithium the exclusive property of the nation and prohibit the grant of concessions to private or foreign companies. Chile announced in April 2023 that the state must retain a majority stake in all projects deemed of 'strategic value,' and African countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Namibia introduced aggressive new mining codes while the DRC has imposed export bans on cobalt.

 

A new paradigm of strategic control

The treatment of critical minerals as a national security matter (or a ‘strategic asset’) is also steadily on the rise, with governments taking direct equity stakes in mining companies, positioning themselves as the offtaker, creating strategic stockpiles, and forming transactional mineral alliances on that basis. Recent examples include the US’ ‘Project Vault’ (in which it has committed USD$12 billion to stockpile critical minerals) and its acquisition of a direct equity stake in MP Materials, a domestic rare earths processor. Meanwhile, G7 members have proposed coordinated price floors for rare earths, signalling a willingness to manage commodity markets that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

The growing intersection between critical minerals and national security is also reflected through rigorous foreign direct investment (FDI) screening. Any acquisition of or investment in critical minerals assets by a foreign investor may be subject to regulatory review and approval. In parallel, tariffs on both raw minerals and processed materials have become an increasingly prominent policy tool to strengthen supply chains by incentivising domestic production and reducing reliance on foreign imports.

Implications

These developments are creating significant headwinds for both new and existing projects: narrowing the investor pool, lengthening approvals processes, increasing compliance costs, and introducing uncertainty around market access and financing. The investment calculus for critical minerals has therefore fundamentally changed. Decisions are no longer driven solely by geology, commodity prices, and operational capability, but must also account for sovereign risk, treaty risk, sanctions exposure, social licence to operate, and the potential for regulatory or policy reversals.

To address this changing landscape, the mining industry can learn from the energy industry, which has long operated in environments fraught with geopolitical risk, regulatory volatility and strategic state involvement:

1.  Investors should embed robust contractual safeguards such as stabilisation clauses and change-in-law provisions into mining agreements, concession contracts, and joint venture arrangements. These mechanisms ensure compensation or contract adjustment if government policy changes, including new tariffs, revised tax regimes, or export restrictions, materially affect project economics.
2. Energy companies have long routed investments through jurisdictions with strong bilateral investment treaty networks or multilateral protections, securing access to international arbitration in the event of expropriation or discriminatory regulation. Mining investors can similarly structure their investments to benefit from treaty protections and dispute resolution mechanisms, such as arbitration at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes or the Permanent Court of Arbitration, providing a critical backstop when political or regulatory risks materialise.
3. Mining companies can diversify jurisdictional exposure. Major energy companies rarely concentrate their portfolios in a single country; they spread investments across multiple jurisdictions to mitigate political and regulatory risk. Mining companies can apply the same portfolio approach, balancing projects in higher-risk, resource-rich jurisdictions with those in more stable regulatory environments.
4. Mining companies should invest in systematic geopolitical risk monitoring and stakeholder engagement. Energy companies routinely maintain dedicated teams or external advisory networks to track geopolitical developments, sanctions regimes, and regulatory changes. For mining companies involved in critical minerals, embedding real-time geopolitical monitoring and community engagement into commercial decision-making can help anticipate export controls, investment restrictions, or regulatory shifts before they materially impact operations. In addition, making use of available political risk insurance, for example, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) will be more pertinent than before.

As critical minerals increasingly become strategic assets in the global energy transition, the mining sector must adopt the risk-management architecture the energy industry has refined over decades. Stronger contractual protections, treaty-based safeguards, portfolio diversification, geopolitical monitoring, and multilateral risk mitigation tools will equip mining investors to navigate the growing intersection of resource development, geopolitics, and national security.

 

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/special-reports/20032026/the-energy-playbook-is-coming-for-mining/