Economic Importance in Criticality Assessments

Economic importance asks how much economic activity depends on a mineral. The EU multiplies each end-use sector's share of a material's use by that sector's value added, adjusts for substitutes, and requires a score of at least 2.8. USGS models how much U.S. GDP a supply disruption would remove across 402 industries, and recommends commodities whose probability-weighted loss exceeds $2 million a year. The modelled results ranged from a loss of nearly $4.5 billion to a gain of $33 million, so a handful of commodities carry most of the economic risk.

How is economic importance measured?

The EU method maps a material's end uses to two-digit industry sectors (the NACE classification), multiplies each use share by the sector's value added as a share of the economy, and applies a substitution index. Where possible it uses EU use shares and otherwise global shares. The USGS method works the other way round: an input-output model with price elasticities estimates how a year-long foreign disruption of a commodity changes output industry by industry, weighted by the probability of each scenario. The result is a dollar figure rather than an index.

Why does end-use concentration matter?

A mineral concentrated in one end use makes that sector's output depend on it, while a mineral spread across many uses touches more of the economy. The table shows how concentrated USGS reports some minerals to be.

How does economic importance change over time?

Economic importance moves with the value added of the sectors that use a material. In the EU's 2023 assessment arsenic's score rose from 2.6 to 3.0 because of a higher increase in value added in the non-metallic mineral products and basic metals sectors, which made it critical. Germanium's rose from 4.2 to 5.4 and nickel's from 3.1 to 3.9 on changes in sector value added and reallocated use shares; the reasons for each change are in the study's Table 12. Economic importance alone does not make a mineral critical under the study's tests: copper's score of 4.0 exceeds the threshold, but its supply risk of 0.1 does not. The Regulation names copper a strategic raw material, and strategic raw materials are automatically critical, so it sits on both EU lists.

Frequently asked questions

What is economic importance in a criticality assessment?

Economic importance measures how much economic activity depends on a material. The EU weights each end-use sector's use of the material by the sector's value added and applies a substitution index; a material needs a score of 2.8 or more to be critical.

How does USGS measure economic importance?

USGS models the change in U.S. GDP from year-long foreign trade disruptions, using input-output tables and price elasticities across 402 industries, and weights each scenario by its probability. Commodities whose annualized loss exceeds $2 million are recommended for the list.

Which minerals are used mostly in one sector?

USGS reports that batteries took 88% of lithium use, solar cells 70% of tellurium and metallurgical use over 90% of U.S. vanadium. About 80% of rhenium goes into turbine engine superalloys.

Can a mineral be important but not critical?

Yes, on the scores alone. Copper meets the EU's economic importance threshold but not its supply risk threshold, yet it is on both EU lists because the Regulation names it a strategic raw material and strategic raw materials are automatically critical.

Sources

Read on October 13, 2026. Figures on this page come from these documents; where a number is an estimate, the source says so.

1. Regulation (EU) 2024/1252, Annex II section 2
2. European Commission: Study on the Critical Raw Materials for the EU 2023. Executive summary and Table 12
3. USGS Open-File Report 2025-1047
4. USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 (ten chapters). Each chapter is linked under the table