A military coup in West Africa has underscored the potential benefits of stockpiling critical and strategic metals essential for the energy transition . The detention of Guinea’s president, Alpha Condé, saw the alumina ex-works China price assessed by S&P Global Platts hit $480.40/mt on Sept. 6, the highest in almost three years. The rise in prices occurred despite no immediate signs of supply disruption in the world’s second-largest producer of alumina, the material that is used to smelt aluminum. The non-ferrous metal is increasingly playing a role in energy transition through the manufacture of wind turbines, batteries, electric vehicles and solar panels. Guinea was the largest exporter of bauxite to China last year, according to data from the S&P Global Platts Atlas of Energy Transition . Unlike oil markets, the stockpiling of metals and ores—such as alumina bauxite, lithium, and copper—is opaque. There is no equivalent intergovernmental watchdog to […]