By Jesse Marks

The Middle East & North Africa Critical Minerals Tracker (MENA-CMT), part of our expanding Rihla ATLAS initiative, maps the region’s accelerating transformation into a pivotal player in the global critical minerals landscape. 

As the global energy transition intensifies, critical minerals is emerging as a key battleground for U.S.–China competition, with both powers channeling billions of dollars into securing supply chains, industrial capacity, and long-term resource access. The Middle East has sought to capture this market.

Critical mineral markets are becoming central to the Middle East’s economic strategy as governments pursue diversification, industrialization, and leadership in clean energy technologies. The rising global demand for materials like lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, and rare earth elements—essential to electric vehicles, battery storage, and advanced manufacturing—is reshaping trade and investment patterns worldwide.

Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are aggressively investing on multiple fronts. Domestically, they are localizing extraction, processing, and downstream manufacturing to lay the foundations for new industries like battery and microchip production. They are leveraging ports, industrial zones, and sovereign wealth capital to accelerate their share of the critical minerals value chain and build economic incentives for companies to relocate to the Middle East. Internationally, the Gulf region is attracting inbound investment through joint ventures and partnerships with both the U.S. and China, while deploying outbound capital into mining ventures abroad to secure long-term resource access. More specifically, the MENA-CMT data shows Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in particular, are investing billions into projects across Africa, acquiring stakes in key assets and forging partnerships with Chinese, American, and European firms to embed themselves in global value chains. This trend began over the past few years, but has accelerated since the beginning of 2025.

China’s dominance in this space is striking: it controls approximately 60% of rare-earth mining and 90% of rare-earth processing globally, processes 67% of lithium, 73% of cobalt, 70% of graphite, and 95% of manganese. China also leads battery component manufacturing, producing 87% of global cathodes, over 91% of anodes, and assembling 70% of the world’s battery packs. Beijing is using its head start to expand business with GCC countries on critical minerals. Meanwhile, experts in the region see benefit in further deepening Sino-GCC cooperation.

The U.S. trails China in many aspects of critical minerals production and processing and is heavily reliant on foreign imports for many of its critical mineral commodities. According to the U.S. Geological Surviey, of the 35 mineral commodities deemed critical by the Department of the Interior, the United States was 100 percent reliant on foreign sources for 13 in 2019. The U.S. is now moving to deepen ties with Gulf states to jointly secure future supply chains and bridge the gap with China. It was a focal point of President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia in May. During the visit, Washington and Riyadh signed a new MoU and a series of investment agreements aimed at building joint capabilities in mineral mining and processing.

For their part, GCC countries are positioning themsleves as a critical platform for China, the U.S., and other countries seeking to diversify and secure supply chains for energy transition technologies. Regional leaders recognize that critical minerals are becoming both a central arena of geopolitical competition as well as a long-term economic pillar in the energy transition. Gulf states are on track to capitalize on this shift by capturing more of the supply chain domestically, securing mining assets globally, and leveraging this position for long-term economic advantage.

The Tracker seeks to capture this transformation by documenting key deals, partnerships, and infrastructure developments across extraction, processing, and manufacturing. As the energy transition reshapes the global economy, The MENA region is positioning itself as a vital hub at the crossroads of resource security, industrial policy, and great power competition.

*Please reach out to Jesse.Marks@rihlaadvisory.com for more information, to inquire about collaboration, or to flag any access or data issues. This is a new product and is being regularly updated.

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