Progress of research on supply risk of mineral resources and future directions

The vulnerability of mineral resources supply is constantly increasing due to geopolitical and other factors. Mineral resources are important raw materials and the propagation of supply risks will lead to significant impacts on the economic system. Assessing the supply risks of mineral resources, and predicting the propagation processes, paths, and impacts of supply risks are important research topics that have attracted widespread attention from scholars both in China and internationally. This article summarized the progress of research on the assessment of supply risks and the propagation of supply risks from the international/national levels to the enterprise/product levels and from the single link to the industry chain and supply chain. The assessment of supply risks and the propagation of supply risks are important components of supply risk formation mechanism. This article laid out formation mechanism for different types of supply risks, such as trade risk and environmental risk, and proposed a framework of supply risk prevention mechanism from four perspectives: supply, technology, environment and price. On this basis, we proposed a research framework for supply risks, which consists of five parts: quantification of supply risks, measurement of supply risks, formation of supply shocks, dynamic simulation of supply shock propagation, and formulation of policy recommendations. We further discussed the urgent issues that need to be addressed. Finally, we proposed three frontiers and challenges in the field of supply risk research: “how to further enhance the sustainable supply capacity of mineral resources”, “how to improve the resilience of the mineral industrial chain”, and “how to measure the macroeconomic losses caused by shocks on enterprise-level supply chain networks”.