The OECD mapped who controls the world's lithium and nickel — and found a fragmented system

An OECD study on critical minerals traceability shows that miners track their own supply chains the least, while Chinese processing of Latin American lithium remains practically invisible in the available data.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development released a study in September 2026 on critical minerals traceability — the ability to track where each mineral comes from, who controls the assets along the chain and how the material moves to the final product. The OECD chose two case studies to test the question in depth: the nickel chain in Indonesia and the Philippines, and the lithium chain in Argentina and Chile — four countries that account for a significant share of global supply of both metals, which are essential for batteries, defense and the energy transition.

The report's central finding is the size of the gap that exists today between the promise of traceability and the industry's actual practice. Existing tracking systems were built, in most cases, within individual companies, with no shared standard across companies or countries — which means each link in the chain sees only the piece that matters to it, and no one, not even governments, has a complete end-to-end view. One data point stands out within this fragmentation: traders are the ones implementing traceability systems the most, and miners the least — precisely the link where the chain begins. The OECD points to three recurring reasons for this reluctance: implementation costs, fear of exposing sensitive data to competitors, and loss of bargaining power with buyers who would gain visibility into the operation's entire cost structure. In the case of nickel, Indonesia and the Philippines show a particularly complex chain, with transnational ownership structures that make it hard to know, in practice, who controls each asset — although systems such as Indonesia's SIMBARA, the London Metal Exchange's responsible sourcing requirements and local audits already offer building blocks to move forward. In the case of lithium, the most applicable finding concerns Argentina and Chile: a significant part of the processing of lithium mined in these two countries depends on Chinese companies — a dependence that today only shows up indirectly, reconstructed from trade data and supplier mapping, because there is no full traceability that shows it directly. In other words: one of the most relevant geopolitical facts about Latin American lithium — who processes the metal after it leaves the brine — is not systematically documented anywhere. The OECD proposes a phased path to close this gap: in the short term, make better use of systems that already exist, such as supplier mapping, audit programs and bilateral minerals agreements; in the medium term, close data gaps by engaging traders, exchanges and smelters, moving toward independent testing and tracking of recycled content; in the long term, international cooperation to share traceability data across borders and align standards — with forums such as the G7 and the International Energy Agency cited as institutional pathways to make this happen.

For compliance, ESG and supply chain management professionals, the OECD report documents a risk many companies already feel in practice but rarely manage to quantify: not knowing precisely who controls each link in their own supply chain. This stops being a technical detail as buyers — battery makers, automakers, defense-related purchasers — start requiring traceability as a precondition for contracts, not as a competitive differentiator. For miners specifically, the report is almost a direct invitation: they are the most lagging link in the chain in adopting traceability, which leaves them more exposed to losing access to regulated markets than traders and processors that have already invested in these systems. And for those analyzing commodity geopolitical risk, the point about Latin American lithium processed mostly by Chinese companies — visible only indirectly — is a reminder that the lack of traceability is not neutral: it tends to hide precisely the most strategic dependencies.