Research

Featured: The Chokepoint Consequence Monitor

Price reporting agencies tell you what a critical mineral costs. Supply and entity databases tell you where it comes from and who sits in the chain. These tools are not primarily designed to provide a recurring assessment of what happens next when a chokepoint actually closes, whether by export licensing, sanctions, content rules, or transshipment enforcement: which downstream costs move and by how much, which lead times stretch, which production schedules slip, how wide the substitution window really is, and what the policy response is likely to be. The Monitor is built to be the standing answer to the question the price and the map both leave open.

A quarterly report series, scoped one line per chokepoint or mineral complex. Every issue carries the same sections in the same order: what changed since the prior issue; the transmission chain from event to mechanism to consequence; observable indicators with sources, readings, and thresholds; alternative scenarios with registered probabilities; and what would invalidate the read, written before the evidence arrives.

Built for government minerals and economic-security analysts, defense-industrial supply-chain programs and the primes supporting them, and corporate procurement and strategy desks with direct critical-minerals exposure.

Pre-launch. Initial coverage hypothesis: rare-earth separation and permanent magnets, being validated with early readers. Copper mine and refining lead times held as the likely second line.

A state-level sample

Arizona's Strategic Exposure to Mexico-China Supply-Chain Integration, an open-source dependency assessment at U.S.-state level, is available as a sample on request.