Origins

Where the cargo actually comes from.

We originate at the load port rather than buying material second-hand in a trading hub. These are the countries our desks source from, and what is commercially distinctive about each.

Indonesia

More than half the world's mined nickel, the largest thermal coal export book, the largest palm oil origin, and an export-control regime that decides all three.

Nickel
Thermal coal
Palm oil
Tin
Copper and gold

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Chile and Peru

More than a third of the world's mined copper, the lowest-cost lithium brine on earth, and a concentrate market where the deductions matter more than the headline price.

Copper
Molybdenum
Silver
Lithium
Zinc

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Australia

About half of seaborne iron ore and coking coal, the largest lithium production in the world, and the only rare earth separation chain outside China.

Iron ore
Coking coal
Thermal coal
Lithium
Rare earths

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Brazil and Argentina

The highest-grade iron ore in the seaborne market, a near-monopoly on niobium, and the open-regime half of the lithium triangle.

Iron ore
Niobium
Bauxite
Copper
Lithium

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Guinea

The largest bauxite origin in the world after Indonesia's export ban, and now a second global source of high-grade iron ore through Simandou.

Bauxite
Iron ore
Gold

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DR Congo

The highest-grade large copper province in the world and about seventy per cent of mined cobalt, two thousand kilometres from the nearest port.

Copper
Cobalt
Tin
Tantalum
Gold

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Southern Africa

The dominant world reserves of platinum group metals, chrome and manganese in one country, plus the Zambian half of the Central African copperbelt.

PGM
Chrome
Manganese
Copper
Thermal coal

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North America

The largest potash basin and the highest-grade uranium on earth, both sold on term rather than spot, plus Elk Valley coking coal and Mexican silver.

Potash
Uranium
Coking coal
Copper
Silver

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South East Asia

Beyond Indonesia: Philippine nickel as China's swing feed, Myanmar tin and heavy rare earths, Vietnamese tungsten, and Pacific copper-gold.

Nickel ore
Tin
Heavy rare earths
Tungsten
Copper-gold

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China and East Asia

The origin for rare earths, tungsten, antimony and graphite, the destination for almost everything else, and the smelters that set the world's treatment charges.

Rare earths
Tungsten
Antimony
Graphite
Smelting

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Russia

Supply positions the world cannot replace quickly — palladium above all — and the origin where what can be bought, by whom, and into which market is decided by sanctions rather than price.

Palladium
Nickel
Diamonds
Potash
Coking coal

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