Last year, the United States explored the possibility of acquiring cobalt for defense stockpiles. Although the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) opted not to include cobalt purchases in its latest plan, it might consider them in the future. Any potential increase in cobalt reserves would be intended…

China’s grip on the rare-earth magnet trade is tightening again, and the export data are the tell. After three straight months of gains, September shipments of permanent magnets slipped to 5,774 tons from August’s seven-month high, even before Beijing rolled out a broader export-licensing sweep this month.

The drop is small in absolute terms and year-on-year volumes are still higher, but the timing, coinciding with revived tariff threats and fresh licensing scrutiny suggests policy signal as much as market noise. For Washington, which has pushed to wall off defense supply chains from Chinese inputs, the specter is familiar: a reminder that Beijing holds a lever over components embedded in everything from guided munitions and radar drives to EV traction motors and smartphones.

The war in and around Iran is giving coal its strongest political and commercial opening in years, not because governments have suddenly abandoned decarbonization, but because a second major gas shock in barely four years is undermining faith in natural gas as a dependable transition fuel. What had already been a difficult effort to push coal into structural decline is now being complicated by a new round of energy insecurity, especially in Asia but also in parts of Europe.

Countries facing high gas prices and disrupted LNG supply are increasingly falling back on coal as the most readily available substitute, while the International Energy Agency’s own late-2025 outlook had already shown coal demand hitting a record 8.85 billion tonnes before a projected gradual decline later in the decade.