Critical Materials Atlas
Supply structure · the N−1 test

Lithium could cope without the leader; graphite couldn’t

The sharpest test of a chokepoint is the N−1 question: if the dominant supplier stopped, could everyone else’s supply meet everyone else’s demand — both measured with that supplier taken out? By 2035, the answer ranges from 82% for lithium — the remainder is nearly self-sufficient — to just 28% for graphite, where it cannot come close. The gap tells you which chokepoints a stockpile or friend-shoring can close, and which need capacity built from scratch.

A high market share is alarming; an N−1 gap is actionable. It nets out demand and supply outside the dominant supplier and asks whether the remainder can stand alone. Where the bar is near full (lithium), a disruption is survivable with inventory. Where it is short (graphite, magnets), no stockpile is large enough — the only fix is years of new midstream capacity, which is exactly the built-capability chokepoint the map flags.

Ex-dominant-supplier coverage of demand, 2035

N−1 supply (everyone except the largest supplier) as a share of N−1 demand (also excluding that supplier’s own consumption) — whether the remainder can stand alone if the supplier is removed. Higher = more resilient. Values verified against IEA GCMO 2026, read directly: definition pp. 119–122; the 28/36/82 statement and chart pp. 316–317. Lithium and graphite exclude the single largest supplier on both sides; the nickel figure removes the top two (China and Indonesia, p. 122), so it sits below with the other different-metric rows.

resilient (≥60%) exposed (30–60%) critical (<30%)▏ marker = full self-sufficiency (100%)
What the gaps tell you to do. Reading the genuine N−1 rows only: Lithium (82%) is close to self-healing — a modest strategic reserve bridges any shock; Graphite (28%) is critical — no realistic stockpile covers the gap, so the answer is sustained midstream investment on a multi-year timeline. The nickel row (36%), the rare-earth rows (mining/refining/magnets) and nuclear enrichment are shown for context but are different metrics — nickel and enrichment remove the top two suppliers (N−2), and the rare-earth rows are a 2035 diversification-pipeline forecast — so they are not on this same resilient/exposed/critical scale. The N−1 number turns "who dominates" into "and can we live without them."

Which table: the banded values are the IEA’s N−1 supply-security figures (Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026: definition and chart pp. 119–122; rare-earth/graphite diversification pipeline p. 262; the 28/36/82 statement and chart pp. 316–317): non-largest-supplier supply as a share of non-largest-supplier demand, at the refining/processing stage, 2035. GCMO 2026 also reports concentration and diversification-pipeline metrics on different bases — the rare-earth mining ~50% / refining ~25% / magnets <20% figures are existing-plus-announced ex-China capacity against projected ex-China demand in 2035 (per the IEA’s Rare Earth Elements executive summary; shown separately above), and other cuts use ex-China rather than ex-largest-supplier, or a different stage/year. So a figure elsewhere that looks like it contradicts these is most likely a different table, not a disagreement. © IEA, CC BY 4.0.

Chokepoints in motion · The security premium · Reallocation stress test