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Why The Era Of Cheap Commodities Is Likely Over—And What It Means For Corporate Strategy
For much of the past three decades, businesses operated under a powerful assumption: Commodities would remain abundant, affordable and globally accessible. If prices rose, they would fall again. If supply tightened, markets would respond. Strategy focused on efficiency, not resilience. I believe that era is over.
Today’s commodity markets are no longer shaped primarily by cyclical demand or short-term disruptions. They are being reshaped by structural forces—geopolitics, industrial policy, underinvestment and the physical realities of energy and infrastructure build-out. For corporate leaders, this is not a pricing issue. It is a strategic one.
Why Cheap Commodities Are A Thing Of The Past
The period of relatively cheap and stable commodities that defined the late 20th and early 21st centuries was not normal—it was exceptional. In studying these eras, I’ve identified a few driving factors: globalization and open trade flows, significant excess capacity built during prior investment cycles, low geopolitical friction and capital markets that consistently funded new supply. Those conditions no longer hold.
Instead, companies now face a world where:
- Critical mineral supply chains are concentrated in a few jurisdictions
- Export controls and resource nationalism influence availability
- Permitting timelines for new supply are lengthening
- Capital investment in mining and energy has lagged behind long-term demand
The result is a persistent mismatch between what modern economies want to build—and what the physical world can supply.
Why Founders Can’t Ignore Commodity Tokenization Anymore
Commodity tokenization lets founders manage real-world asset risks — like energy, metals and fuel — by turning them into flexible, digitally tracked economic interests.
Key Takeaways
- Commodity tokenization modernizes ownership and financing without changing the underlying physical assets.
- Founders who understand commodity exposure early gain optionality in volatile, capital-constrained markets.
Most founders don’t think much about commodities. Oil, metals, power, raw materials — those are background inputs. Something suppliers deal with. Something finance prices in. Something outside the “real” business of building products and acquiring customers.
That mental model used to work. It doesn’t anymore.
As supply chains fragment, capital becomes more selective and volatility turns from cyclical to structural, commodities are creeping closer to the center of how companies are built, financed and scaled. One of the most misunderstood developments accelerating that shift is commodity tokenization.
Ignore the crypto noise for a moment. This isn’t about speculation. It’s about plumbing.
So, what is commodity tokenization — really?
Strip away the jargon and tokenization is a pretty simple concept.
It’s the process of representing a real, verifiable commodity or commodity-linked asset — physical inventory, future production, royalties, streams — on digital rails. Each token corresponds to a defined economic interest, with rules around ownership, transfer and settlement baked in.
The important part is what doesn’t change: the asset is still real. Copper is still copper. Oil still has to be produced. Power still has to be generated.
Tokenization doesn’t replace the physical world. It changes how capital interacts with it.
Indonesia orders world’s biggest nickel mine to cut ore quota for 2026
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PT Weda Bay Nickel has been told to file a 2026 work plan reflecting 12 million wet metric tonnes of annual production and sales, a sharp cut from the 42 million wet metric tonnes permitted for 2025, according to a statement from Eramet.
The company said the 12 million figure was an initial notification and that it would apply promptly for an increase to the 2026 volume.
The Weda Bay complex, the largest in the world, is operated by Eramet and Tsingshan Holding Group and is central to Indonesia’s nickel supply chain, after Jakarta’s ore export ban helped drive heavy investment into domestic processing.
Nickel prices jumped on the news. Three-month nickel on the London Metal Exchange rose 2.2% to $17,880/t and hit $17,980/t, the highest since Jan 30, 2026.
The cut also fits a broader tightening of Indonesia’s approved mining plans for 2026. Indonesian media have cited official comments that national nickel ore work-plan approvals total roughly 260–270 million tonnes, down from 379 million tonnes in 2025, according to Reuters and the Financial Times.
Why it matters: Indonesia is now using permits and quotas as a direct market lever. For investors, that raises the upside to any sustained tightening — and the policy risk that quotas can be revised again. Financial Times
Our latest report on whether nickel hit $25,000 in 2026?
US launches $12 billion strategic minerals stockpile
- US is creating a $12 billion strategic minerals stockpile to reduce dependence on China
- the program targets rare earths, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and other critical minerals
- funding will be routed through EXIM Bank and federal procurement mechanisms
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The US will establish a US$12 billion strategic minerals stockpile, marking its most direct intervention yet in critical mineral markets as competition with China intensifies. The initiative, announced by the White House on Monday, is designed to secure long-term supplies of minerals vital to defense, energy transition and advanced manufacturing.
- government buying sets a price floor for select minerals
- long-term offtakes reduce financing risk for miners and processors
- supply outside China gains strategic premium
The program authorizes federal agencies to purchase, store and rotate strategic minerals, shifting US policy beyond subsidies and tax credits toward direct ownership of physical supply.
“Project Vault will secure the raw critical minerals essential to our defense, energy and technology sectors so we are no longer reliant on our adversaries!” — Secretary Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior and Chairman of the National Energy Dominance Council
Why now?
China controls or dominates processing across much of the critical minerals supply chain, refining roughly 60–90% of global rare earths and battery materials depending on the mineral
Beijing has increasingly used export controls as leverage, tightening restrictions on gallium, germanium, graphite and rare earth-related technologies.
How the stockpile will work
The Export-Import Bank of the United States will play a central role, financing purchases and long-term offtake agreements with domestic and allied producers
Unlike the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the minerals stockpile will focus on diversification and rotation, buying material during periods of surplus and releasing supply to stabilize markets during disruptions, according to administration officials cited by Bloomberg.
What minerals are included?
While the full list has not been disclosed, officials have confirmed priority materials include:
- rare earth elements used in magnets and defense systems
- lithium, nickel and cobalt for batteries
- graphite for anodes and energy storage
- Other minerals designated as critical by federal agencies
A shift in US industrial policy
The stockpile represents a clear escalation in US industrial strategy. Previous efforts focused on permitting reform, tax credits and loans. This move places the federal government directly into mineral markets as a buyer and holder of supply.
Bloomberg notes the policy mirrors China’s own state-backed stockpiling playbook, which has historically supported domestic producers and insulated supply chains during market downturns
For investors, the announcement tightens the link between national security and mineral pricing. Strategic materials are no longer just cyclical commodities; they are becoming state-backed assets with asymmetric upside during supply shocks.
As geopolitical risk rises and supply chains fragment, the US minerals stockpile signals that critical minerals are moving closer to the status once reserved for oil.
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Just-in-time procurement and the clean energy transition
Why and how business must shift tactics — by Anthony Milewsiki in FastCompany
For decades, just-in-time procurement was treated as a triumph of modern business. Inventory was minimized, capital was freed up, and global supply chains were optimized for speed and efficiency. If something was needed, it could be ordered. If prices moved, they could be hedged. If disruptions occurred, they were assumed to be temporary.
That model worked—until the energy transition exposed its limits.
The clean-energy economy was built on an assumption that proved dangerously optimistic: That critical commodities would always be available when needed, at predictable prices, through familiar market mechanisms. That assumption shaped everything from EV rollout timelines to grid-expansion plans to climate policy targets. And it was wrong.
The bottleneck in the energy transition isn’t technology. It’s materials.
The transition was planned like software, but runs on atoms
Digital thinking shaped the innovation culture over the past two decades. Software scales quickly. Capacity can be spun up on demand. Constraints are largely human or computational.
But the energy transition is not a software problem. It’s an industrial one.
Electric vehicles are powered by and run on lithium, nickel, copper, graphite, and rare earths. Wind turbines and transmission lines require enormous volumes of steel and copper. Solar panels depend on polysilicon, silver, and specialty metals. None of these materials is produced instantly, and most require years—often decades—of planning, permitting, financing, and construction.
Yet procurement strategies remained rooted in a world treating materials as commodities in the narrowest sense as interchangeable, liquid, and always available.
Why Commodity Scarcity Is Becoming the Biggest Bottleneck for Clean-Tech Entrepreneurs
Anthony Milewski, The Oregon Group founder, writes for The Entrepreneur
Clean-tech startups are hitting a scaling wall because material supply, not technology or capital, is now the real constraint.
Key Takeaways
- The energy transition is industrial, not digital, and moves at the pace of physical supply.
- Just-in-time procurement fails when critical materials are scarce, slow and geopolitically constrained.
For the past decade, clean-tech entrepreneurship has been driven by a powerful assumption: that if the technology works and the capital is available, scale will follow. Better batteries, smarter grids, electric vehicles and cleaner power generation would naturally accelerate as innovation compounded.
What many founders are now discovering — often too late — is that the real constraint isn’t software, funding or even regulation. It’s materials.
The energy transition is not a digital transformation. It’s an industrial one. And industrial systems move at the pace of geology, permitting and physical supply chains — not pitch decks and product roadmaps.
The transition was planned for demand, not supply
Global decarbonization targets assumed that critical commodities — copper, lithium, nickel, graphite, rare earths, uranium — would simply be available when needed. That assumption shaped everything from EV adoption forecasts to grid-expansion plans.
But commodity supply does not respond like demand. You can’t spin up a copper mine or a processing facility in 18 months. Most take a decade or more from discovery to production. Years of underinvestment, coupled with rising geopolitical friction and permitting complexity, have left supply structurally behind demand.
The result is a widening gap between climate ambition and physical reality.
For entrepreneurs building hardware-dependent businesses, this gap is no longer abstract. It shows up as delayed projects, rising input costs, missed delivery timelines and margin pressure that no amount of software optimization can fix.
Indonesia orders world’s biggest nickel mine to cut ore quota for 2026
US launches $12 billion strategic minerals stockpile
Just-in-time procurement and the clean energy transition
Why Commodity Scarcity Is Becoming the Biggest Bottleneck for Clean-Tech Entrepreneurs
Mining investment tightens as geopolitics and oversupply shape 2026 — Wood Mackenzie
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Global mining investment will be dominated by three main drivers in 2026: geopolitics, the energy transition, cautious capital investment, according to the latest report by Wood Mackenzie.
Specific events in particular that will set the tone of trade and growth (across tariffs, fiscal support and commodity demand) will be:
- China’s 15th Five-Year-Plan in H1 2026
- US mid-term elections in H2 2026
Despite pockets of demand strength, mining companies remain wary of committing capital amid policy shifts, trade friction, and uneven growth prospects. The risk backdrop will reinforce a preference for capital returns and M&A over greenfield builds.
What happens to metals demand in 2026?
Demand growth persists, but unevenly.
Copper stands out, with ongoing supply disruptions are expected to support copper prices, while gold and silver benefit from safe-haven flows and central bank buying amid macro uncertainty.
The energy transition continues despite political pushback, driven by electrification, renewable power deployment, and data-center power needs. However, Wood Mackenzie expects oversupply in many minerals to persist through 2026, keeping many prices capped.
Wildcards
The report highlights a number of “wildcards” that may create volatility in markets, including:
- AI efficiency gains creating productivity improvements could either lift material demand via scale effects (Jevons paradox) or dampen consumption via thrifting and substitution
- Battery materials face a similar fork, with 2026 likely clarifying whether solid-state batteries move closer to commercial reality
- Peace in Ukraine would likely lift commodity sanctions across the board from Russia
- State-led investment across commodity value chains would support majors finally greenlighting large-scale greenfield projects that have long been waiting in the wings
Growth, but with guardrails
Even where prices justify development, final investment decisions remain scarce. Resource nationalism, partner scrutiny by host governments, and trade barriers delay supply responses. Where capital does flow, it is more likely from smaller, agile players than majors, reinforcing a fragmented growth path .
According to Wood Mackenzie, for investors and policymakers, 2026 looks less like a capex supercycle and more like a selective opportunity set. Geopolitics, discipline, and disruption — not demand alone — will decide returns.
Trump orders negotiations with foreign suppliers on critical mineral imports, warns tariffs if deals stall
US President Trump has signed an Executive Order directing US trade and commerce officials to begin talks with foreign suppliers to secure critical mineral imports, while warning that tariffs or other trade restrictions could follow “if such an agreement is not entered into within 180 days of the date of this proclamation”.
The order comes under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, after a government investigation concluded that current imports of processed critical minerals threaten national security.
Trump said the administration would not impose new tariffs immediately, opting instead for negotiations to adjust import volumes and conditions. However, the proclamation sets a 180-day deadline, after which the US could introduce minimum import prices, quotas, or tariffs if agreements are not reached.
Investigation flags America’s critical mineral import dependence
The Commerce Department’s Section 232 investigation found the US was 100% net-import reliant on 12 critical minerals in 2024 and more than 50% reliant for a further 29, despite some domestic mining activity. The shortfall is most acute in processing and refining, which remains heavily concentrated overseas.
Processed critical minerals and derivative products are used across defence systems, power grids, electric vehicles, electronics and advanced manufacturing, the administration said, making supply disruptions a strategic risk.
China exposure in focus
Officials again pointed to China’s dominant position in global processing of rare earths and other strategic materials as a central vulnerability, particularly after Beijing tightened export controls on several critical inputs over the past year.
Trump said the US would seek alternative overseas supplies and deeper partnerships with allied producers, rather than rely on countries seen as geopolitical rivals.
Price mechanisms and trade risks
The Trump administration says negotiations could include price-based mechanisms, a signal that Washington may attempt to counter what it sees as market distortions from subsidised or state-backed production abroad.
The move coincides with Trump’s decision to extend the national emergency with respect to energy, preserving broad executive authority to address supply risks across energy and mineral markets.
Why it matters
By delaying tariffs, the administration avoids an immediate cost shock to US manufacturers dependent on imported inputs. But the 180-day clock introduces policy risk for exporters and clarity for allied suppliers positioned to benefit from new trade agreements.
Tokenized Assets: The Next Frontier For Corporate Treasuries
Over the past several years, tokenization has transformed from a niche technological experiment into a major development in global finance.
While much of the conversation has centered on retail investors, fractional ownership and new markets for hard assets like gold, I believe the next—and arguably far more consequential—chapter is unfolding inside corporate finance departments.
I see the corporate treasury, traditionally one of the most conservative functions inside any company, as on the brink of a structural shift. As tokenized commodities and real assets become widely available through regulated digital rails, treasurers seem poised to begin holding these assets directly—just as they hold cash, currency hedges and short-term securities today.
The infrastructure for this is already being built, making the incentives for corporations to adopt tokenized assets clear.
The Treasury Problem Nobody Wants To Discuss
Corporate treasuries face a problem that has quietly been growing for years: The global economy is becoming more volatile while traditional hedging tools have not evolved to match the speed of modern commerce.
US plans $2.7 billion investment to restore uranium enrichment
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- US Department of Energy awards $2.7 billion to restart domestic uranium enrichment after decades of decline
- the move targets HALEU fuel, now critical for next-generation nuclear reactors and defense applications
- US currently relies heavily on Russia-linked enrichment services
- enrichment capacity, not uranium mining, is now the tightest bottleneck in the US nuclear fuel cycle
The US US Department of Energy has awarded US$2.7 billion to restore American uranium enrichment capacity, largely abandoned three decades ago, aiming to reduce reliance on foreign — and increasingly adversarial — suppliers.
The funding will support commercial-scale enrichment, early deployment of advanced centrifuge technology, and the production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) — fuel enriched between 5% and 20% U-235. HALEU is essential for most advanced reactor designs now backed by US policy and capital.
Why enrichment is the weak link in the uranium supply chain
The US once dominated uranium enrichment. That system collapsed in the 1990s as cheap Russian supply flooded global markets under the “Megatons to Megawatts” program. Today, the US has no commercial HALEU enrichment capacity and only limited conventional enrichment, according to the DOE.
Globally, enrichment is concentrated. Russia’s state-owned Rosatom controls an estimated 40% of global enrichment capacity. The United States imports 20-25% of its enriched uranium from Russia. Even after sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine, Russian material continues to flow into Western fuel cycles under waivers and exemptions.
For the US, that dependence has become untenable. Advanced reactors backed by federal loan guarantees, Pentagon contracts, and Big Tech power purchase agreements cannot proceed without assured domestic fuel supply.
“President Trump is catalyzing a resurgence in the nation’s nuclear energy sector to strengthen American security and prosperity,” said US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright. “Today’s awards show that this Administration is committed to restoring a secure domestic nuclear fuel supply chain capable of producing the nuclear fuels needed to power the reactors of today and the advanced reactors of tomorrow.”
What Is HALEU — and why it matters now
HALEU is not a niche product. The majority of next-generation reactors — including small modular reactors (SMRs), microreactors, and fast reactors — require it. The DOE estimates initial US demand for HALEU could reach tens of tonnes per year by the early 2030s, scaling sharply thereafter.
Projects from companies like TerraPower and X-energy are already delayed by fuel availability. Without domestic enrichment, the US would be forced to source HALEU from Russia — the only commercial supplier today — or delay reactor deployment indefinitely.
Inside the DOE plan — rebuilding the fuel cycle
The US$2.7 billion award is part of a broader effort to rebuild the entire US nuclear fuel supply chain — from conversion and enrichment to fabrication. The DOE’s HALEU programs support:
- commercial-scale centrifuge enrichment
- demonstration of advanced enrichment technologies
- long-term contracts to anchor private investment
The following companies were awarded task orders totaling $2.7 billion to provide enrichment services for LEU and HALEU:
- American Centrifuge Operating ($900 million) to create domestic HALEU enrichment capacity
- General Matter ($900 million) to create domestic HALEU enrichment capacity
- Orano Federal Services ($900 million) to expand U.S. domestic LEU enrichment capacity
The strategy mirrors earlier US interventions in semiconductors and rare earths: public capital to de-risk infrastructure the market cannot rebuild alone.
Crucially, this funding is structured to catalyze private capital, not replace it. Enrichment is capital-intensive, regulated, and politically sensitive. Without government support, the economics simply do not clear.
Why this fits the bigger nuclear reset
The enrichment push sits within a wider nuclear revival. Global nuclear capacity is set to expand as governments chase firm, low-carbon power. The US alone has committed billions in loan guarantees, tax credits, and direct support for reactors, fuel, and supply chains.
As previously outlined in our Nuclear Energy Is Back analysis the bottleneck is no longer demand. It is execution — and fuel availability is at the center of that challenge.
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