Metals and global supply chain vulnerabilities
Metals are another obvious vulnerability in the global economy, particularly those linked to the green transition. Scarcity due to a lack of production capacity and/or geopolitics are important risks.
The challenges in scaling up the production of electric vehicle batteries are a good example, as we highlighted in a recent report. Nickel-based batteries, currently favoured for their superior driving range, not only face constraints from long lead times on new mining development, but 20% of high-grade nickel, the type used in batteries, is sourced from Russia, and trade restrictions are also a key risk for supply. Supply chains of alternative battery technologies – lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and sodium iron (Na-ion) – are almost entirely reliant on China. Geopolitics is clearly a risk here too.
That battery story can be expanded to other metals associated with the green transition. While lithium and nickel are the most exposed to critical supply risks, according to analysis by the US Department for Energy (chart below), plenty of others are seen as near-critical. Those include aluminium, where more than 80% of inventory on the London Metals Exchange is Russian material. Meanwhile copper prices – currently dampened by China’s weak recovery – are more likely to rise in the longer term, in part owing to a lack of investment in mining facilities in South America.
Against this backdrop, near-shoring (or “friend-shoring”) will undoubtedly rise – though it’s early days and evidence of companies exiting the likes of China in favour of alternatives is mixed. Green industrial policy, like the US Inflation Reduction Act, is also beginning to reshape supply chains at the margin. Near-shoring is likely to be a slow-moving ship, but ultimately, if firms are trading lower costs for greater resilience, that’s likely to be inflationary. A recent ECB working paper concludes that re-shoring increases the price level for both producers and consumers, particularly in trade-intensive manufacturing.
Is any of this capable of pushing inflation to the sorts of levels seen in 2022? Perhaps not. However, the glut of new vehicles and the resulting demand for used cars alone succeeded in adding more than a percentage point to US CPI in 2021. That showed that disruption for key products is capable of generating sizable upward inflation moves.
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