Most critical minerals projects do not fail for lack of ore or lack of money. They fail because lenders cannot underwrite them. A summary of the World Economic Forum's framework, and how it applies to Kazakhstan.
The short answer: most critical minerals projects do not fail for lack of ore or lack of money. They fail because lenders cannot underwrite them. Revenues are uncertain, timelines are long, and banks aren't willing to carry these risks without governmental support. That is the central argument of a May 2026 white paper from the World Economic Forum and Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.
The paper is called Making Critical Minerals Bankable: Policy Tools to Unlock Investment. Below we summarise its framework as applicable to Kazakhstan.
The WEF paper lists familiar barriers first: high upfront capital, long development timelines, complex permitting and social licence, infrastructure needs and policy uncertainty. These factors impact all heavy industries.
It then discusses three frictions that are specific to critical minerals. First, they are not one monolithic market, but many. Pricing, liquidity and contract norms vary a great deal from mineral to mineral. Second, processing and refining are concentrated in a few places, which shapes offtake terms for new entrants. Third, buyers often need long qualification cycles before they will commit, which delays revenue even after a mine has reached its operational stage.
One figure captures the market problem well: according to the WEF, fewer than 20 of the 60 minerals on the USGS critical list have standardised futures contracts on at least one major exchange. Without a futures market, a lender cannot easily hedge price risk. As a result, it lends less (if at all), for shorter periods, at higher cost.
Copper is the most liquid of the critical minerals. It has traded on the London Metal Exchange since 1877 and global mine output was about 23 million tonnes in 2024 (WEF). Even so, the paper cites an expected supply shortfall of 30% by 2035 and a $250 billion investment gap by 2030.
Regarding copper, the WEF argues that binding constraints are usually political risk, infrastructure and delivery, rather than price. It also notes that many companies are buying existing assets rather than building new mines, and that new projects are increasingly in more remote places at higher overall risk.
The paper groups the answer into six levers, each aimed at a different constraint (WEF):
| Lever | What it addresses | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront capital support | Early costs with no cash flow | Grants, concessional loans, guarantees, public equity |
| Offtake and demand anchors | Uncertain demand | Government procurement, stockpiles, prepayment |
| Revenue stabilisation | Volatile or opaque prices | Contracts for difference, price floors |
| Risk mitigation | Political and completion risk | Political risk insurance, completion guarantees |
| Structural enablers | Slow permits, weak infrastructure | Permitting reform, shared infrastructure, public geoscience |
| Fiscal mechanisms | Thin project margins | Production and investment credits, royalty design |
The paper illustrates each lever with an actual use case. One example is the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia, where a $1 billion guarantee from the World Bank's MIGA helped unlock a $4.4 billion project finance package. Another is a 2025 US Department of Defense agreement with MP Materials that set a price floor for rare earth products.
The main message is precision. The paper argues that broad subsidy programmes often miss the real constraint. The right tool depends on three things: the mineral's market structure, the jurisdiction's risk profile, and the project's stage.
The paper sorts countries into five simplified types: low-risk and high-governance, medium-risk and policy-uncertain, state-directed, high-risk and fragile, and reforming or partnership-seeking. It is careful to say that many countries mix features of several types (WEF).
It does the same for the project lifecycle. At exploration, there is no cash flow and only risk-tolerant equity will fund work, so public geoscience and exploration support matter most. At construction, cost overruns and permitting delays dominate, so completion guarantees and concessional loans matter. Once in production, the risks shift towards changes in fiscal terms and the need for reinvestment.
The WEF paper does not assess Kazakhstan, so what follows is our own reading, based on two other public sources.
Kazakhstan shows features of more than one of the paper's jurisdiction types. The US ITA guide describes active reform, a cooperation programme with the USGS on resource assessment, and efforts to push more processing inside the country. That fits the "reforming or partnership-seeking" type. The same guide also describes outdated equipment procured from Russia, which would fall under the infrastructure constraints the paper links to higher costs.
The 2026 legal changes point in the same direction. An UPPERSETUP overview of Kazakhstan's subsoil law, published in September 2026, reports three amendments to the Subsoil Code in 2026 alone. It also notes that the license stability clause excludes taxation, so a new royalty taking effect on January 1st, 2027 can reach existing license holders. In the paper's terms, frequent rule changes such as the ones alluded to here would indicate higher political risk, and therefore higher lending cost.
There is also a point of alignment. The same overview reports that Kazakhstan's new royalty will charge lower rates for more processed products. The WEF paper describes Saudi Arabia using a similar sliding-scale design to encourage local processing. Whether that design works in Kazakhstan will depend on execution.
The takeaway is not that any project or country is either intrinsically bankable or not. Rather, the question has to be asked precisely: which mineral, which stage, which binding risk. For Central Asia, geology is rarely the first question lenders ask. Legal predictability, infrastructure, offtake and the path to a qualified buyer usually come first.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice or an offer of securities.