Europe’s dependence has become a strategic issue

Europe’s effort to reduce its dependence on external raw materials can easily be seen as a matter of security policy. But the change is much broader. Electrification, battery manufacturing, defence technology, data centres, power grids and renewable energy all require enormous quantities of metals. Copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements have moved from ordinary industrial inputs to strategic resources.

For decades, Europe built its industrial competitiveness on global supply chains, sourcing raw materials wherever they were most efficient and affordable. Geopolitics has changed that calculation.

The EU Critical Raw Materials Act makes the shift concrete. By 2030, the Union aims to extract at least 10% of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials within the EU, process 40% and recycle 25%. At the same time, dependence on any single non-EU supplier country should be limited to no more than 65% for each strategic raw material.

The more interesting question may therefore no longer be whether Europe should mine minerals, but where they can be produced economically, responsibly and at sufficient scale. Finland is unusually interesting in this comparison.

Cobalt illustrates Finland’s opportunity

According to the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), Finland’s known cobalt resources amount to roughly 453,000 tonnes of contained cobalt, with a further estimated 270,000 tonnes of undiscovered resources in Finnish bedrock. Kevitsa and Terrafame are, according to GTK, currently the only mines producing cobalt in Europe.

Mineral resources alone, however, do not make Finland a strategic player. More interesting is the combination of geological potential, operating mines and unusually strong metals-processing expertise. GTK reports that around 12,000 tonnes of cobalt were refined in Finland in 2025, representing roughly 8% of reported global cobalt refining output.

In Sotkamo, Terrafame takes the concept further by recovering several metals from the same industrial site and refining nickel and cobalt into battery chemicals. Strategically, that is very different from merely having a promising deposit on a map.

WHY FINLAND?

Significant mineral potential, existing mining production, strong metallurgical expertise, an EU location and the ability to move further along the value chain into higher-value processed products.

Finland’s strength may lie in polymetallic deposits

Cobalt rarely occurs alone. It is often found together with nickel, copper, gold and platinum-group metals. For an investor, this matters: a relatively low grade of one metal does not necessarily determine a project’s economics. What matters is the total metal value contained in the ore.

Sakatti in Sodankylä illustrates this well. Anglo American describes Sakatti as a copper-dominant polymetallic deposit with mineral resources of around 157 million tonnes. In addition to copper, it contains nickel, cobalt, platinum, palladium, gold and silver. Sakatti was designated an EU CRMA Strategic Project in March 2025.

Finland does not need to become the world’s largest producer of cobalt, nickel or copper. It may be enough to build polymetallic, highly processed raw-material chains that are significant on a European scale.

A mineral resource is not yet a mine

A geologically promising deposit is only the beginning. Between a resource and an operating mine lie studies, feasibility calculations, financing, infrastructure, environmental impact assessment, permitting and finally major investment decisions.

Latitude 66’s KSB project in Kuusamo is a useful example. The company reports a current JORC resource of 7.3 million tonnes of ore grading on average 2.7 g/t gold and 0.08% cobalt, containing around 650,000 ounces of gold and 5,840 tonnes of cobalt. A preliminary economic assessment completed in March 2025 indicated promising economic potential, according to the company.

The same tension applies across Europe. We want electric vehicles, batteries, wind power, defence technology and low-carbon industry. All require minerals. Yet opening new mines in Europe is slow and often politically difficult. At some point, these two objectives have to be reconciled.

The real question is the value chain

If the investment perspective is limited to cobalt, the Finnish universe remains fairly small. Broaden it to copper, nickel, lithium, cobalt and rare earths, and the question changes. We are no longer looking for one promising mine; we are looking for a potential European ecosystem.

Finland’s strengths include high-quality geological data, mining and metallurgical know-how, existing industrial infrastructure and the ability to process some raw materials far beyond simple mine concentrates.

For an investor, the most interesting question may therefore not be who owns the ground. A more important question is: who controls the value chain, and where is the value actually created?

A mine is only the first step. It is followed by concentration, refining, chemicals, battery materials and ultimately high-value industrial products. The further Finland can move along this chain, the larger the share of the economic value that may remain in Finland. Finland’s real competitive advantage may therefore be not only what is found underground, but what we know how to do with it.

What about the investor?

Critical minerals are an attractive investment theme, but not a simple one. Hautalampi is an interesting example. Eurobattery Minerals’ wholly owned FinnCobalt is developing a nickel-cobalt-copper project in Outokumpu and applied for EU CRMA Strategic Project status in January 2026.

Sakatti, by contrast, belongs to Anglo American. Even if the deposit itself proves highly significant, the impact of a single Finnish project on the share price of a large international mining group is inevitably different from its impact on a small project company.

This is a reminder of a basic investment principle: a good deposit does not automatically make a good investment. Ownership, financing needs, valuation, permitting, construction costs and timing can be at least as important as geology itself.

That is why critical minerals may be more useful to view as an entire value chain rather than simply as a collection of mining shares.

A small country with a strategically large position?

It is too early to say that Finland will become one of Europe’s major winners in critical minerals. But the possibility is real.

Finland has mineral resources, operating mines, metallurgical expertise and processing industry. Above all, it is inside the European Union at precisely the moment when the EU is deliberately expanding its own mining, processing and recycling capacity.

Minerals do not create prosperity by themselves. The decisive question is whether Finland can combine geological potential with competitive industry, acceptable environmental solutions, predictable permitting and sufficient capital.

If it succeeds, Finnish bedrock may in future be viewed very differently from only a few years ago: not merely as a natural resource, but as part of Europe’s strategic infrastructure.

And that may be exactly why Finland’s critical minerals are worth watching now — before their strategic importance is fully reflected in their economic value.

NaviOptima | Insights

This article presents a general perspective on the theme and does not constitute investment advice. Investing always involves a risk of losing capital.