Sanctioned Russian Diesel Tanker Fails to Reach Cuba

By ZeroHedge - May 27, 2026

A Russian tanker carrying 270,000 barrels of diesel fuel, which is under US and EU sanctions, spent weeks trying to reach crisis-hit Cuba, which is also under US sanctions, as well as amid what's essentially become a full energy blockade, but has failed to reach the island nation and turned southward toward Brazil.

The exiled Russian outlet, The Insider, has detailed the following based on maritime tracking data:

The Russian-flagged tanker Universal (IMO: 9384306), which had been drifting for almost a month in the Sargasso Sea approaching the Antilles, has finally moved. However, the vessel is heading south, not toward Cuba, according to data from the Starboard Maritime Intelligence ship tracking service provided to The Insider. The vessel's current destination is listed as FOR ORDER. Judging by the vessel's movements, the United States has denied the tanker permission to transit Cuba. (machine translation)

via The Insider

It had been bound for Cuba since its departure from Russia in April, and was for a month drifting in an area some 1,000 miles northeast of Cuba.

Its destination remains listed as "For order" - which means it is still in a holding pattern awaiting routing and final destination instructions.

According to more details of it prior movements via The Moscow Times, "The Universal departed from the Russian Baltic port of Vistino in the Leningrad region on April 6 and, according to Britain's The Telegraph, was escorted through the English Channel by a Russian military convoy."

It was the Russian Black Sea Fleet frigate Admiral Grigorovich that accompanied the vessel into the Atlantic. Such extreme measures as a full military escort are deemed necessary due to prior EU country interdictions of sanctioned Russian ships.

Especially going back to April, Cuba and its population have been facing tightening economic strains where rolling blackouts and fuel shortages have intensified public hardship.

This energy crisis has become a central issue in its relations with Washington, as the government seeks relief from sanctions that limit access to fuel imports. A main supplier, Venezuela, has curtailed oil shipments to Cuba since the United States captured dictator Nicolás Maduro in January.

The White House has repeatedly proclaimed that the Cuban government is in a weakened state. President Trump has also threatened "Cuba is next". "The country is very weak. They’re in a very weak position economically, obviously, and financially," WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said back in April.

By Zerohedge.com

 

Myanmar military steps up fight for rare earth area and border routes

Reuters | May 25, 2026 |

Stock image.

Myanmar’s military has launched renewed offensives into several border regions, including a frontier area with critical rare earth deposits and other vital trade routes, a month after a new administration took formal control of the war-torn country.

New military chief Ye Win Oo, who took office in March after his long-time predecessor stepped down to become president, is making an aggressive push to reclaim strategic border strongholds from ethnic armies that have gained strength in recent years, spokesmen for rebel groups and analysts told Reuters.

The military’s recent offensives have focused on Kachin State, a region rich in heavy rare earth elements that abuts China, as well as Chin State on the Indian border and a key trade corridor in Karen State, next to Thailand.

At a meeting last week, Ye Win Oo told soldiers that the military had secured Falam town in Chin State and an arterial route between Mandalay and Myitkyina in Kachin State, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

“The military’s strategic rationale is that they need to regain control over the primary communication and trade routes in Myanmar,” said Myanmar analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe.

“We can see that the military is trying desperately to recapture towns that host border trade gates.”

An official from Myanmar’s presidential office, reached via phone, declined to comment.

Reuters could not independently verify the details of military offensives and their early successes across parts of Myanmar, where media access remains restricted.

The offensives come after former junta chief-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing last month asked rebel groups opposed to the military to enter into peace talks within 100 days – a proposal that many ethnic armies immediately rejected.

Myanmar’s ongoing conflict was sparked in 2021, when the military staged a coup that ousted the democratically elected civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The takeover triggered a nationwide uprising that escalated into an armed resistance, with multiple ethnic armies and rebel groups pushing the military out of several regions.

Border gateways

The military is seeking to drive deeper into northern Kachin State, with an eye to retake mining belts along the Chinese border that produce roughly half of the world’s heavy rare earths, which are essential for wind turbines and electric vehicles.

Naw Bu, spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Army that took control of the area in October 2024, said the armed group has prepared their defences, particularly around the Chipwi and Pangwa township areas.

“We will welcome them with the barrels of our guns,” he said.

Simultaneously, the military has launched an intensified offensive on the western front in Chin State, bordering India, which could disrupt a key cross-border logistics route that supports opposition groups inside Myanmar.

Resistance fighters have undertaken strategic retreats from Falam and Tonzong towns in the state, as the military uses heavy aerial bombings to recover lost territory, said Salai Van, a spokesperson for the Chin National Front.

Illicit Iranian deliveries of jet fuel have previously powered an expansive bombing campaign by the Myanmar military, which struck more than 1,000 civilian locations in a 15-month period, Reuters has reported.

The war machine does not yet appear to have been slowed down by fuel shortages triggered by the conflict in Iran, although the country’s farmers and other civilians have been hard hit by the global energy crisis.

The military has also launched an offensive to control the Myawaddy-Kawkareik highway near Thailand, a key trade route around which fighting has raged on since the Karen National Union ethnic army pushed into the border town of Myawaddy in 2024.

The KNU is among those that Min Aung Hlaing specifically mentioned as part of his attempt to bring opposition groups to the table by July 31.

“The military has repeatedly and continuously violated pledges along the path to peace and paid no heed to agreements,” said Saw Taw Nee, a spokesperson for the ​KNU.

“Therefore, it goes without saying that there is a complete absence of trust. Whatever they attempt, it is bound to fail.”

(By Reuters staff; Editing by Devjyot Ghoshal and Lincoln Feast)

U.S. Scores Major Rare Earth Win With Greenland Deposit Deal

By Charles Kennedy - May 27, 2026

Source: DiscoveryAlert

As Washington races to build a rare earth supply chain that can survive the Pentagon’s 2027 ban on Chinese-origin materials, REalloys (NASDAQ: ALOY) has locked in long-term supply from one of the largest known heavy rare earth deposits in the world.

The company announced last Thursday that it has signed a definitive 15-year offtake agreement with Critical Metals Corp. (NASDAQ: CRML) covering 15% of Phase 1 production from the Tanbreez project in southern Greenland, a massive heavy rare earth deposit containing Dysprosium and Terbium, the two most strategically sensitive magnet materials used in fighter aircraft, missile systems, radar platforms, drones, and advanced defense hardware.

REalloys is building one of the only integrated heavy rare earth metallization and magnet production platforms in North America as Washington pushes to break its dependence on Chinese processing capacity before the Pentagon ban takes effect in only seven months.

The company’s Euclid, Ohio, operation focuses on the hardest part of the rare earth supply chain outside China: converting rare earth oxides into defense-grade metals, alloys, and eventually the world’s strongest and most advanced magnet: the NdFeB permanent magnet type used in missile systems, fighter aircraft, radar platforms, robotics, EV drivetrains, and advanced industrial systems. 

REalloys says it is scaling that Ohio platform into the largest heavy rare earth metallization facility outside China, supported by a growing network of allied-nation feedstock agreements.

The Tanbreez agreement significantly expands that network.

Under the deal, REalloys will secure 15% of monthly Phase 1 production from the Greenland project for an initial 15-year term. 

This is another major announcement for REalloys as the company rushes to stay ahead of major defense deadlines. 

The Tanbreez offtake deal follows REalloys strategic partnership with Saskatchewan Research Council, tied to 80% of the output from the Saskatchewan Research Council’s commercial rare earth processing facility. It also adds to the company’s previously secured rights to up to 10% of production from the high-grade Sheep Creek rare earth deposit in Montana, and its control of the Hoidas Lake rare earth asset in Saskatchewan. 

GREENLAND IS EMERGING AS A WESTERN RARE EARTH STRONGHOLD

Trump didn’t manage to buy Greenland, but REalloys got its critical minerals. 

The strategic importance of the Tanbreez project goes far beyond scale. 

The Greenland deposit is one of the largest known heavy rare earth resources globally and one of the few major Western-aligned projects capable of supplying meaningful quantities of Dysprosium and Terbium outside China.

Tanbreez isn’t just another rare earths venue. It’s a heavy rare earth behemoth, while most global deposits focus on less valuable light rare earth production. Critical Metals estimates heavy rare earths account for roughly 27% of the project’s total profile. Most global deposits focused primarily on light rare earth production.

The Greenland project is already fully permitted and advancing under a Western-aligned ownership structure following Greenland's approval of Critical Metals’ acquisition of a controlling 92.5% interest earlier this year. 

For REalloys, the deal secures another long-term heavy rare earth materials now central to Pentagon supply chain planning amid a Middle East conflict that is rapidly depleting the arsenal. 

Johns Hopkins economists Steve Hanke and Jeffrey Weng told Fortune magazine that the U.S. has already burned through massive portions of its precision weapons inventory across Iran and Ukraine, while remaining dependent on Chinese-controlled rare earth materials to replace them. The economists suggest that Washington has blown through 45% of its Precision Strike Missile inventory just in Iran, and nearly 50% of its THAAD interceptors and 30% of its Tomahawk cruise missiles, among others. 

Those systems rely on samarium-cobalt magnets or dysprosium- and terbium-enhanced NdFeB magnets that still flow overwhelmingly through China’s refining and metallization system. The authors estimate that replenishing just four major weapons systems could require between five and ten metric tons of finished defense-grade rare earth magnets, with more than 95% of current supply chains still tied to China.

And that’s the gap REalloys is helping to close, with a North American solution helmed by a leadership lineup that represents the who’s who of American defense. 

Joe Kasper, former Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, leads REalloys’      advisory board, working closely with REalloys’ Board Chair, Stephen duMont, president of GM Defense, and seated Board member, General Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.               

These are the people who’ve run defense procurement from the inside, the ones who decide who gets qualified, who gets funded, and who actually ends up supplying material into weapons systems.

“This is about building a completely sovereign supply chain from input to finished product, without relying on foreign processing,” Joe Kasper, former Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of Defense and now Chairman of REalloys’ advisory board, told Oilprice.com. “If the U.S. can’t access domestically-processed and manufactured materials, then it does not have a rare earths supply chain at all.”

All Systems Go

REalloys’ Phase One operations are already turning rare earths into alloys in Ohio, amid an ongoing build-out that will launch next year alongside the Pentagon ban on Chinese-origin rare earths. Its plans for Phase Two are a major scale-up.  

In Phase One, REalloys intends to move into North American production of high-purity rare earth oxides that can be turned into metals and alloys, using a mix of recycled magnets and mined feedstock. This is the point at which material is produced in the United States and can move through a traceable supply chain. The capital required is about $75 million, and the buildout has $50 million in cash already allocated. 

By Phase Two, it will all run through the Ohio facility, where REalloys already converts rare earth oxides into metal and alloy form. The buildout increases throughput and expands the range of material it can process, including heavy rare earths like Dysprosium and Terbium. Feedstock is expected to come from both recycled magnets and upstream feedstock supply agreements, like the one from the Tanbreez project, with the material moving through reduction and alloying in-house before leaving as finished product.

Phase Two will also vertically integrate by adding rare earths magnet production to the pipeline. By 2029, the plan is to add magnet manufacturing in Ohio, closing the full circle from processed material into finished components.

Instead of selling metal and alloys into someone else’s system, REalloys would produce NdFeB magnets itself from its own integrated solution and keep that margin. 

This is where the economics takes a major leap forward, and it’s what prompted Clears Street in April to launch coverage of REalloys

Clear Street initiated coverage of REalloys with a Buy rating and a $35 price target, even though the stock was trading just under $8 at the time of the report, because the current valuation does not reflect what the system could look like once it’s running at scale.

The Rare Earths End Game

Rare earths are now facing tightening restrictions on both sides of the Pacific. 

And Washington is scrambling to the point of internal divisions over how fast this entire supply chain can be built. 

Bloomberg reports that internal disagreements are emerging inside the Trump administration after China’s export restrictions exposed major U.S. vulnerabilities. The argument is over whether the U.S. should rely on market forces to rebuild the rare earth industry or use aggressive state-backed financing and industrial policy similar to the model China used to dominate the sector.

The pressure is now extending well beyond junior mining and processing companies. Large U.S. industrial and defense players like GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE) and LMT (NYSE:LMT) are increasingly exposed to the rare earth supply chain bottleneck as advanced jet engines, missile systems, radar platforms, and aerospace electronics remain heavily dependent on Dysprosium-, Terbium-, and NdFeB-based magnet systems. As Pentagon restrictions tighten ahead of 2027, securing non-Chinese processing and metallization capacity is rapidly becoming a strategic issue across the broader U.S. defense-industrial base.

This is why companies capable of securing even a single strategic link in the non-Chinese rare earth supply chain could become some of the most valuable industrial and defense assets of the next decade.

By. Charles Kennedy

 

China Keeps Rare Earth Pressure on Washington After Trump Summit

By Alex Kimani - May 27, 2026

• Trump’s Beijing summit produced business deals and temporary diplomatic easing, but failed to secure a long-term rollback of China’s rare earth export restrictions.
• 
  
• China continues to dominate heavy rare earth supply, with exports of key materials like dysprosium, terbium, and yttrium still heavily restricted.
• 
  
• The U.S. and Europe are accelerating efforts to build independent rare earth supply chains through major investments in domestic mining, processing, recycling, and magnet production.
• 
  

Two weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump paid a visit to Beijing for a high-level summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with a view to stabilizing bilateral trade, securing new business deals, and seeking China's diplomatic leverage to help manage the conflict in Iran. Trump traveled with a delegation of high-level American CEOs to encourage China to open its markets to U.S. tech companies, and managed to secure several multibillion-dollar deals. The summit yielded a modest tactical detente and improved diplomatic normalcy between the two rival powers, with the White House reporting that Xi remains opposed to the militarization of the Strait of Hormuz. However, Trump’s visit had a glaring failure: the discussions in Beijing did not result in a formal agreement or long-term trade truce concerning China’s easing of rare earths export restrictions.

Still, China “can ground America’s drone fleet with a single phone call”, according to an opinion piece this week in American military publication Stars and Stripes. Back in November, Beijing reaffirmed that broad export restrictions introduced earlier, such as the outright bans on rare earth extraction/separation technology and the specific volume controls on select critical minerals like tungsten, bismuth, antimony, as well as various medium- to heavy-rare-earth elements, remain fully in effect. China did pause the sweeping, second-wave controls that had mandated export licenses for foreign entities and products containing trace amounts of Chinese-origin rare earth materials, it had announced in October 2025–but only for one year.

Related: Aluminum Market Facing ‘Serious and Prolonged Supply Outage’

And now, an analysis by Fitch Group's BMI Research notes that Xi’s team only promised to address U.S. supply shortage concerns without providing concrete structural extensions or policy adjustments during the latest meeting.

Chinese shipments of highly critical "heavy" rare earths remain drastically suppressed despite the one-year respite, with dysprosium, terbium, and yttrium exports currently running at just 41%, 49%, and 42% of pre-restriction levels, respectively. Worryingly, the price of yttrium has skyrocketed 15-fold due to acute shortages stemming from China's export rules, triggering severe disruptions across the U.S. aerospace and semiconductor industries where the mineral acts as a vital protective and thermal coating. China accounts for ~70% of U.S.’ yttrium supply, as well as 100% of its terbium, holmium, and lutetium.

China’s rare earths hegemony has sent the United States and its Western peers scrambling for alternative supplies.

Back in July, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) agreed to purchase $400 million in preferred stock in MP Materials (NYSE:MP), making the Pentagon the company's largest shareholder with an equity stake of roughly 15%. The agreement includes a 10-year offtake contract with a price floor, ensuring that MP Materials' output goes directly to defense and commercial customers to secure domestic supply chain independence. MP Materials is utilizing this capital and an additional $1 billion in commercial debt from JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs to build the "10X Facility," a massive rare earth magnet manufacturing campus located in Northlake, Texas.

Around the same time, USA Rare Earth (NYSE:USAR) signed a non-binding Letter of Intent (LOI) with the U.S. Department of Commerce to access $1.6 billion in government funding, which will be drawn from a finance facility created under the CHIPS and Science Act. The funding package consists of a proposed $1.3 billion senior secured loan and $277 million in federal funding. The company will also issue a 10% equity stake (and warrants for additional shares) to the U.S. government. The investment will fast-track the mining, processing, and refining of heavy rare earth elements at their Round Top deposit in Sierra Blanca, Texas, with commercial production anticipated to begin in 2028.

REalloys (NASDAQ:ALOY) is also positioning itself within the emerging Western rare earth supply chain through a series of agreements tied to heavy rare earth processing and metallization capacity in North America. The company has secured long-term supply agreements with the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) for neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), dysprosium, and terbium output, while funding upgrades to SRC’s processing facility in Saskatoon and developing a heavy rare earth metallization platform in Ohio focused on producing defense-grade metals and alloys. REalloys has also signed feedstock agreements tied to the Tanbreez project in Greenland and the Sheep Creek rare earth deposit in Montana as part of a broader mine-to-magnet strategy targeting U.S. defense and industrial markets.

Meanwhile, Europe is bypassing China's near-monopoly on rare earths through the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which caps single-country dependency. The bloc is investing heavily in domestic extraction, processing, and recycling, shortlisting strategic projects and signing resource partnerships with Western-allied nations. Recognizing the vulnerability of supply chains, the European Commission is implementing coordinated defense strategies through initiatives such as RESourceEU Action Plan, an initiative backed by up to €3 billion in funding that coordinates demand aggregation, supply stress tests, and the joint purchasing of critical minerals among member states. The CRMA also mandates that at least 25% of the EU's strategic raw materials come from recycled waste by 2030.

European automakers and tech manufacturers are also increasingly designing products that bypass rare earths altogether. For instance, manufacturers are pivoting to magnet-free motors, including synchronous reluctance motors and induction motors, which eliminate the need for neodymium-based permanent magnets in electric vehicles. 

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

 

China’s grip on lithium to hit 39% by 2030: WoodMac

Staff Writer | May 25, 2026 | 

Tres Quebradas lithium project in Argentina. (Image courtesy of Zijin.)

Chinese companies are on track to control 39% of global lithium production by 2030 as they deepen investments across Africa, Australia and South America, tightening Beijing’s influence over battery supply chains despite broader geographic diversification of mining output.

Chinese ownership of lithium extraction assets has risen steadily from about one-third in 2020, according to Wood Mackenzie’s Lens Metals & Mining platform, while production itself is spreading into new regions. 

Australia, the world’s largest lithium producer, is forecast to see its share of global extraction fall from the 43% it had in 2020 to 25% by 2030 as African supply ramps up. Africa’s share is expected to rise from almost nothing to 13% over the same period.

“Lithium production and lithium ownership are increasingly diverging, and it is reshaping the global critical mineral supply chains,” Allan Pedersen, Wood Mackenzie’s research director for energy transition and battery materials, said. “While production growth is becoming more geographically diverse, ownership remains concentrated among a relatively small group of companies, mostly led by China.”

Chinese groups have expanded far beyond domestic production, building stakes in Australian and Argentinean assets while financing much of Africa’s emerging lithium industry. 

Recent deals include Huayou Cobalt’s proposed acquisition of Atlantic Lithium (ASX: A11) and co-investment in Ghana’s Ewoyaa project, alongside Hainan Mining’s investment in Kodal Minerals’s (LON: KOD) Bougouni project in Mali.

“With few exceptions, Africa’s lithium growth has been financed by Chinese capital,” Pedersen said. “That raises important questions around ownership, value capture and long-term supply chain influence as production continues to scale.”

South America’s share of global lithium supply is forecast to slip below 25% by 2030 despite continued investment, Wood Mackenzie said. 

Europe catching up

Europe’s ownership position is strengthening after Rio Tinto’s (ASX, LON: RIO) acquisition of Arcadium Lithium and Equinor’s (NYSE: EQNR) expansion into battery materials.

WoodMac said Europe’s gains stem less from mine ownership and more from increasing control over the broader battery supply chain through refining, manufacturing and recycling investments. Companies including Rio Tinto, Stellantis and Renault are securing stakes and supply agreements tied to lithium projects in Argentina, Germany and other jurisdictions, while Europe expands refining capacity through projects such as Vulcan Energy in Germany and Sibanye-Stillwater’s (JSE: SSW, NYSE: SBSW) Keliber in Finland.

The region is also building electric vehicle battery plants through companies including Northvolt and ACC, backed by the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act aimed at reducing dependence on China and creating a more self-sufficient battery ecosystem.

North America’s share has weakened as lithium projects face delays, cost pressures and slower ramp-ups. Several major North American assets are owned, financed or partnered with foreign groups, particularly Australian and Chinese companies, Wood Mackenzie said.

The ownership shift comes as governments race to secure critical mineral supply chains needed for electric vehicles and energy storage. China’s growing control over lithium assets across multiple producing regions could intensify geopolitical competition over battery materials and complicate Western efforts to reduce dependence on Chinese supply chains.

Australian lithium mine cleared to double output as prices soar

Bloomberg News | May 24, 2026 |

Mount Holland mine in Australia. Credit: Wesfarmers Ltd.

The massive Mount Holland lithium mine in Western Australia has received approval for a significant expansion that will see production double, according to a regulatory filing.

The expanded mine will include new deposits and a duplication of the current processing operations, pushing capacity to 4.4 million tons of spodumene per annum, according to application documents.

Mt Holland is owned by Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile, known as SQM, and Wesfarmers Ltd. in a 50:50 joint venture and produces spodumene concentrate for export, as well as around 50,000 tons per annum of battery-grade lithium hydroxide.

A spokesperson for the venture was not immediately available for comment.

Lithium supply from Australia has seen several major boosts in recent months as prices of spodumene and lithium chemicals soar after a years-long lull.

Spodumene concentrate prices have rallied since mid-December and hit a more than 2-year high at $2,890 a ton on May 12, although they still remain significantly lower than the record $6,110 reached on Nov. 8, 2022.

The volume of new and returning supply may put pressure on recovering prices, according to Cameron Perks, lithium product director at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence ltd., which forecasts a surplus next year.

“The restarts factor in; it’s also new greenfield projects in places like Africa, Mongolia and Russia,” Perks said in an interview by telephone Friday. “We’ve seen projects pop up that we didn’t have in the pipeline 12 months ago. There’s probably more out there that we don’t know about as well.”

Benchmark is closely watching a potential restart of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd.’s Jiangxi operation in China, a massive mine that could immediately place downward pressure on lithium prices.

Earlier this month, Core Lithium Ltd. restarted its Finniss project in Australia’s Northern Territory, while Mineral Resources Ltd. announced it would resume mining at its Bald Hill project east of Mt Holland in Western Australia after an 18-month hiatus. It is also considering an expansion of its Mt Marion mine.

In addition, PLS Group Ltd. is ramping up its mining and processing operations in Australia in response to higher prices, while Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart and SQM are seeking to build a new mine in Australia’s north called Andover.

(By Paul-Alain Hunt)

 

China could become a net refined zinc exporter in 2026, analysts say

Reuters | May 25, 2026 | 

Stock image.

China could export more refined zinc than it imports for the first time in four years in 2026, analysts said, as growing supply and weak demand at home push companies to supply the metal to the world’s markets.

China, which produced roughly half the world’s zinc last year, has long also been a major importer of the metal mainly used to galvanize steel.

However, net refined zinc exports are expected to be 30,000 tons this year, according to Alice Fox, commodities strategist at Macquarie Group, versus 209,767 tons of net imports last year and 428,890 tons in 2024.

At home, the refined zinc supply growth is forecast to outpace demand this year at 4.2% to 1%, according to Fox, as new capacity comes online while demand is still saddled by the struggling property sector.

Meanwhile, the reverse is true in the rest of the world, due to the production suspension or scale-down of smelters in Peru and Kazakhstan because of accidents, tightening supply of zinc concentrate. In addition, production costs have risen due to higher energy costs caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

“China got very close to self-sufficiency in refined metal by end-2025,” said Olga Hepting, principal zinc analyst at the CRU Group, a consultancy. “It will likely remain in surplus while the rest of the world is in deficit in 2026, leading to exports, possibly in the third to the fourth quarter.”

Prices outside China are also rising more rapidly than the domestic benchmark. The most-traded zinc contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was up 3% this year as of Friday, while the London Metal Exchange’s global benchmark has gained 11%.

While China was still a net importer in the four months to April, net imports fell 62% from a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations of Chinese import data. Analysts expect the flip to exports to occur in the second half of this year.

To be sure, Hepting noted that should the Iran war drag on, the global hit to demand from higher energy prices could eat into China’s export markets.

(By Amy Lv and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)

 

Chinese firms speed up plans to build new coal power plants: GEM

Bloomberg News | May 25, 2026 | 

Thermal coal plant in Inner Mongolia, China. Stock image.

Chinese firms are accelerating the pace at which they propose new coal-fired power plants, even as the government moves to rein in growth after the rapid expansion in recent years.

Companies requested approval for 51 gigawatts of new plants in the first quarter of the year, according to Global Energy Monitor, ahead of the record pace set in 2025 that saw 162 gigawatts of new proposals over the full year. Construction has boomed since a spate of power shortages in 2021 and 2022 as the government touts coal’s role as a reliable back-up to intermittent renewables.

Still, it’s unclear how long the government will let the spree continue. Beijing has said coal use will peak before 2030, and in April the environment ministry said it plans to “rationally control” coal-powered capacity. Of the new proposals in the first quarter, only 3 gigawatts have been approved, according to GEM.

Coal’s domestic abundance also relies on a hazardous mining industry that’s once again in the spotlight after the deadliest accident in years on Friday left at least 82 dead.

The onslaught of new coal plants in China comes even as a surge in clean energy reduces the need for fossil fuels. Thermal generation fell last year for the first time in a decade, although it’s since rebounded. Coal plant utilization fell from 56% to 52% in 2025, and the current batch of proposals risks intensifying that trend, tying up capital that might be better deployed elsewhere in the power system, said Christine Shearer, a researcher at GEM.

“The debate in China today is often less about whether renewables can grow quickly enough, and more about whether policymakers are willing to let coal’s role diminish as clean energy scales up,” Shearer said.

The new requests were spread evenly across the quarter, according to GEM. That indicates there wasn’t a sharp reaction to the global energy shock stemming from US and Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February.

“The latest crisis may strengthen the justification for continuing coal development, but the underlying expansion likely would have been happening anyway,” Shearer said.