On the twelfth day of Christmas, it isn’t carolers at the door – its demand.
With gold prices absolutely soaring, copper wiring the world’s electrification, and lithium power batteries, the global appetite for commodities grows.
Across 2025 and into 2026, the mining industry is being asked to deliver more tonnes, more speed, more certainty, and more sustainability. Governments are reshaping policy, capital is recalibrating its risk, and communities are seeking a renewed assurance.
This final chapter of Mining.com.au’s 12-day Christmas series explores 12 rising demands and outlook perspectives.
Copper’s Christmas
As a crucial industrial material for the energy transition, copper’s market in 2025 has been characterised by supply constraints and growing demand, leading to price volatility.
There is one key focus of copper for 2026; supply.
Lodestar Minerals (ASX:LSR) Executive Chairman Ross Taylor says the copper market remains structurally tight, with declining global grades and emerging supply gaps driving long-term optimism.
“Chile continues to attract international attention as a stable, world-class source of copper,” Taylor tells Mining.com.au.
“Heading into 2026, the broader environment appears increasingly favourably for explorers with exposure to new discovery potential, especially those with copper-gold upside.
“It is exactly the kind of market where high-quality early-stage projects can rapidly re-rate.”
Antares Metals (ASX:AM5) CEO Johan Lambrechts explains that the world has been producing large quantities of copper for several years, with roughly 700 million tonnes of copper produced to date.
“But new discoveries of large deposits have not been forthcoming to replace the depleted resources produced in the same period,” Lambrechts explains.
“Without large and new copper discoveries, or multiple high-grade copper discoveries of smaller scale, the demand should outstrip supply due to our insatiable need for electricity to power our technologically centred lives.”
For SPC Nickel (TSX-V:SPC), CEO Grant Mourre says copper and nickel are the company’s primary metals, with platinum group metals playing an important supporting role.
“At Muskox, for example, you see copper-rich and nickel-rich sulphides with very strong platinum group metals values right at the surface and in historical drilling,” Mourre says.
According to the US Geological Survey, identified copper deposits contain an estimated 2.1 billion tonnes of additional copper, bringing the total amount of discovered copper to 2.8 billion tonnes.
For reference, this would fit into a cube measuring 680m on a side.
The US Geological Survey estimates that the undiscovered copper resource contains about 3.5 billion tonnes, which would fit into a cube measuring about 890m on a side.
Nickel nutcracker
Nickel is almost the mirror image in the short-term, as Mourre says rapid supply growth from Indonesia has created a surplus and pushed prices down.
“Most analysts expect the market to remain oversupplied for several years, even though nickel remains essential for many higher performance battery chemistries and stainless steel,” he says.
As Mining.com.au reported on the second day of Christmas, Nasdaq revealed across all warehouses, the London Metal Exchange (LME) hosted 164,028 million tonnes of nickel at the beginning of 2025, by the end of H1 2025, the amount had risen to 203,886 million tonnes.
Recent data shows that the upward trend continued to rise through Q3 2025, with LME nickel stockpiles reaching 231,504 million tonnes on 30 September.
Caedmon Marriott, Managing Director of Western Mines Group (ASX:WMG) tells this news service that nickel has very robust growth fundamentals, continuing to grow at more than 6% annually.
“The majority of this is in stainless steel which is a function of global GDP growth, particularly driven by China,” Marriott says.
“EVs and batteries are another strong growing sector for nickel. Whilst this growth outlook has been tempered somewhat by China’s move to LFP batteries for cheap ‘disposable’ city EVs, we think the premium nickel chemistry will continue to be the preferred lithium battery for western world.
“Another interesting anecdote or demand driver I heard recently is that the copper used in heat exchangers for AI data centres, that everyone is raving about, is actually nickel plated to avoid corrosion – so there’s another nickel demand driver with AI growth.”
Western Mines believes it is well-positioned heading into 2026, with what could be a “globally significant” western world nickel supplier.
“Being a nickel sulphide deposit, we will naturally be first quartile when it comes to CO2 intensity of nickel production so this would be very well suited for use in nickel batteries,” Marriott explains.
Lithium lights
Continuing the conversation of battery metals, analysts and executives believe lithium is forecast to have a strong 2026, with global production capacity remaining high, tempering price rallies and contributing to ongoing volatility.
Demand is accelerating, particularly from China, where EV output rose 20.3% year-on-year in September 2025, the strongest growth recorded this year so far.
Patagonia Lithium (ASX:PL3) Executive Chairman Phillip Thomas believes the EV sector will continue to dominate in 2026.
“By growth in stationary storage, which is becoming a major pillar of demand especially in the US and Europe,” Thomas says.
“EV’s have traditionally been the major demand driver but the lack of government subsidies, lack of charging infrastructure has curtailed growth in most countries except China to less than 8% per annum and most have a very low takeup base.”
Q2 Metals (TSX-V:QTWO) Corporate Development Chris Ackerman expands on the importance of EV, by describing EV as the “main character”.
“Global EV sales are on pace for another strong year of growth (25%), and I expect strong growth to continue,” Ackerman tells this news service.
Thomas adds that Patagonia Lithium is likely to be three years away from production, with a target of 10,000 tonnes per year of battery-grade lithium carbonate.
“So our sales will probably coincide with a deficit in the lithium carbonate market estimated to be between 2029-2030,” he says.
“Global supply is currently finely balanced at around 1.5 to 1.6 million tonnes in 2025. In 2024, there was 1.32 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, an increase from 540,000 tonnes in 2021.”
Another major demand story in the lithium space that is being discussed is energy storage systems (ESS). Ackerman says that ESS battery demand is a long-term driver that is seeing growth worldwide.
“Both EV and ESS demand may turn the lithium supply glut faster than most anticipated and I think some evidence of that is showing up in the market in terms of investor interest, activity, and analyst updates,” he says.
Scandium season
Continuing the talk of battery metals, Scandium is also forecast to have an “increasingly favourable environment”, according to Guy Bourassa, CEO of Scandium Canada (TSX-V:SCD).
“Governments are strengthening their critical minerals policies, manufacturers are seeking to secure their North American supply chains, and lightweight alloy applications continue to progress,” he says.
“We are reaching a moment where scandium can finally shift from a ‘niche’ metal to a strategic industrial input.”
As reported on the ninth day of Christmas, the scandium market was valued at US$591.95 million in 2024. The market is projected to reach from US$643.45 million by 2025 to US$1.254 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 8.7%, according to Straits Research.
The global scandium market’s growth is expected to be driven by the minerals’ use in high-performance applications including aerospace, automotive, and solid oxide fuel cells.
Scandium Canada’s Crater Lake Project, located in Québec, is considered the largest primary source of scandium in North America. Crater Lake has a resource of 20.9 million tonnes in the indicated category and 16.3 million tonnes in the inferred category.
Golden garland
On the rather precious side of the market, industry executives argue that gold will continue at the momentum it is currently running with.
Sunshine Metals (ASX:SHN) Managing Director Damien Keys says that the world is not getting any less crazy at the moment, so “we can see a long forecast of good gold prices”.
Keys adds that the uncertainty derived for the US with trade will be the main catalyst driving gold’s momentum, coupled with uncertainty with anything else going on with trading.
“I guess the US is spiraling into more debt. It is all great tailwinds for gold.”
WIN Metals (ASX:WIN) CEO Steve Norregaard adds to this, explaining he is optimistic that the high price now is sustainable in the medium term.
“There is a lot of uncertainty worldwide, and there is a flight of money going into gold in preference to other commodities,” he says.
“So there is no reason why that won’t remain the focus whilst we’ve got world wars and uncertainty enveloping everywhere. No one’s talking about the gold price going down.”
A recent Goldman Sachs survey revealed that 36% of respondents see gold hitting US$5,000 per ounce by the end of 2026, pushed by central bank buying and broad investor appetite.
At the time of writing, gold had climbed to more than US$4,240 per ounce, reporting the highest level in six weeks. Trading Economics reports this rise comes off the back of increasing expectations of a US interest rate cut this month.
Antimony angel
One of the most talked about metals during the tailend of 2025, is antimony. Antimony is most commonly found with gold in the mineral stibnite – a silvery-black, brittle sulphide.
Gold and antimony are found together due to being deposited by the same hydrothermal fluids in the same geological structures.
Krakatoa Resources (ASX:KTA) CEO Mark Major remains bullish on the antimony outlook, given its use in military applications, as well as other things.
China is the dominant producer of antimony, with over 75% market share. The supply-demand gap is further compounded by the limited resources outside of the country and there are no operating mines where antimony is the primary metal produced. The remaining supply comes from operating mines in Russia, Tajikistan and Bolivia.
This lack of supply has earned the metal a spot on critical minerals lists around the world, including in the US, Australia, the European Union, the UK, India, Korea and Japan.
“The EU and other countries are ramping up their military expenditure and we believe the market will also be very bullish on antimony in the near-term, with key players securing long-term offtake agreements and contracts rather than relying on the open market,” Major tells this news service.
“Security of supply seems to be paramount for most countries in the developing world.”
Bauxite baubles
Meanwhile, the demand for traded bauxite in the Asia-Pacific region has been rising by double digits over the last four years.
Metro Mining (ASX:MMI) CEO Simon Wensley says this rise is likely to continue growing in a similar way in 2026, up by about 20 million tonnes. This rise comes as new coastal refineries come online in China relying on traded bauxite.
“This is likely to be met with bauxite supply out of West Africa and Australia – the two dominant suppliers of traded bauxite,” Wensley says.
Despite bauxite’s rising demand, ABx Group (ASX:ABX) CEO Mark Cooksey explains that the market situation is being affected by government processes and decisions.
“For example, the efficiency of approval processes can affect the time it takes to expand existing mines or open new mines,” Cooksey says.
“Some countries, such as Guinea and Indonesia, have imposed export bans on bauxite to encourage domestic alumina production. These factors can affect the global bauxite trading market.”
As 2026 approaches, demand for sustainable, low-emission materials is expected to rise. This rise is anticipated to come from primarily investment and global decarbonisation targets.
Companies that are prioritising innovation, scalability, and compliance will be best positioned to capitalise on this market opportunity. Overall, the outlook points to stronger adoption of technological innovations and growing opportunities for the mining sector.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Antares Metals, SPC Nickel, Western Mines, Metro Mining, Krakatoa, & Mining.com.au
