Critical and Strategic Metals and Minerals in Nordic Countries

The European Commission has taken measures to improve the long-term availability of raw materials through implementation of the Raw Material Initiative in 2008, and by several actions since. The first list of critical raw materials (CRM) for the EU was published in 2011, and it has been updated in 2014, 2017, 2020, and 2023.

In the latest update, the Commission listed 34 economically important mineral raw materials and metal groups as CRMs, materials that are subject to a high risk of supply interruption. This update is part of the CRM Act (CRMA) proposal by the European Commission, released on 16 March 2023. The CRMA also includes a list of raw materials defined as strategic for the EU. The strategic raw materials include 15 elements, some with specific processed quality, plus those of the REE which are essential for magnets.

Critical and strategic mineral raw materials as specified by the EU in 2023, and for which there are known resources or resource potential in the Nordic Countries (Estonia, Finland, Greenland, Norway, Sweden), are listed below. Click commodity name to open a commodity fact sheet indicating if it is a CRM or at CRM and a strategic raw material. The fact sheets contain information on uses of a commodity, global and Nordic resources and production, deposit types, recycling, issues in production technology, etc.

Critical Strategic
Antimony Bismuth
Arsenic Cobalt
Baryte Copper
Beryllium Gallium
Bismuth Germanium
Cobalt Lithium – battery grade
Copper Magnesium metal
Feldspar Manganese – battery grade
Fluorspar Natural graphite – battery grade
Gallium Nickel – battery grade
Germanium Platinum group metals (PGE)***
Hafnium REE for magnets (Dy, Gd, Nd, Pr, Tb)
Helium Silicon metal
HREEs* Titanium metal
Lithium Tungsten
LREEs**
Magnesium metal
Manganese
Natural graphite
Nickel
Niobium
Phosphate rock and Phosphorus
Platinum group metals (PGE)***
Scandium
Silicon metal
Strontium
Tantalum
Titanium metal
Tungsten
Vanadium

* HREEs: dysprosium, erbium, europium, gadolinium, holmium, lutetium, terbium, thulium, ytterbium, yttrium
** LREEs: cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, praseodymium, samarium
*** The Platinum Group Metals (PGEs) include platinum, palladium, iridium, rhodium, ruthenium, and osmium

The EU CRM list also includes aluminium/bauxite, boron/borate, and coking coal, and that of strategic raw material includes metallurgy grade boron. As there is no known resource potential for these in the Nordic countries, we have not produced a Nordic fact sheet for them.

The NODD working group has also gathered information on the metals listed below as our working group considers them important and for which there is either Nordic production (Cr and Te) or resource potential (In):

Chromium
Indium
Tellurium

References

https://scrreen.eu/crms-2023/
https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-03/Study%202023%20CRM%20Assessment.pdf https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC132889
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52023PC0160
http://tupa.gtk.fi/julkaisu/tutkimusraportti/tr_213.pdf
http://tupa.gtk.fi/julkaisu/tutkimusraportti/tr_219.pdf