Mapping regional metal flows from mine ownership to final consumption

To mitigate supply risks, policymakers rely on metal criticality assessments. These assessments focus on the risks related to the regions where metals are extracted, overlooking the significance of corporate control over mines. Here we use input-output analysis and mine ownership data to map value chains of ten metals from 2000 to 2022. We build over 100,000 sankey diagrams to visualize metal flows across 159 countries and 4 world regions, covering three key steps: mine owner nationality, extraction region, and final consumption region. Our analysis finds no correlation between a country's share of domestically controlled mine production and its wealth, indicating the globalized nature of the mining industry. Regions that appear independent based on production are often reliant on foreign-controlled production when ownership is considered. On average across metals, 153 of the 163 regions relied on metals produced by foreign compagnies for over 90% of their final consumption. Most importantly, this study is the first to demonstrate that foreign mine control has no measurable impact on trade flows to date. However, mine ownership still offers potential leverage to disrupt supply chains in the future. These findings highlight the crucial need to incorporate mine control into criticality assessments to better address vulnerabilities.