Critical minerals as geopolitical pivot: A strategic framework for west African beneficiation

Job Opue (), Ebenezer Bowale (), Abang Mbia () and Brian Eyang ()
Additional contact information
Job Opue: Covenant University, Ota
Ebenezer Bowale: Covenant University
Abang Mbia: Department of Economics, University of Calabar
Brian Eyang: Department of Social Work, University of Calaba

Economics Bulletin, 2026, vol. 46, issue 3, 1361 - 1373

Abstract: West Africa possesses over 40% of global bauxite reserves and emerging lithium, rare earth, and cobalt deposits essential for the green energy transition. This paper develops a dynamic bargaining model demonstrating how strategic forward contracts with OECD countries can finance domestic beneficiation while mitigating the resource curse. We prove that when resource nationalism takes the form of value-addition requirements rather than export restrictions, a Nash bargaining solution exists that Pareto-dominates both pure extraction and autarkic processing. The model predicts that West Africa can capture 35-45% of the value chain through strategic positioning as a processing hub, compared to 8-12% under raw export regimes. Policy simulations using ECOWAS mineral data suggest that coordinated regional beneficiation infrastructure could attract $12�18 billion in forward-contract financed investment by 2030.

Keywords: critical minerals; resource nationalism; forward contracts; Nash bargaining; beneficiation; West Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O2 Q3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-09-30
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2026/Volume46/EB-26-V46-I3-P113.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-26-00966

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics Bulletin from AccessEcon
Bibliographic data for series maintained by John P. Conley ().