China’s Metals Overcapacity Squeezes Western
China’s overcapacity in metals processing is forcing Western smelters to close, threatening critical mineral security.
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Charles Pitts is the publisher of Skillings Mining Review, the trade journal that has covered mining since 1912. He writes on the macro forces behind metal prices: commodity cycles, sovereign capital and the shifting sources of demand. His current work argues that hyperscale AI, and the gigawatt-scale power its data centres need, is becoming a buyer of lithium and copper in its own right, competing with the automotive supply chain for tier-one reserves.
China’s overcapacity in metals processing is forcing Western smelters to close, threatening critical mineral security.
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