Future Facing Commodities Forum 2025

Thank you for attending. We will be back later this year with the LME Forum on October 15 in London

Optimists had hoped that 2025 could be the year where positive economic momentum combined with loosening monetary policy to supercharge demand for metals. Unfortunately, things are rarely that simple.

The outlook for metals was already complicated by deep concerns over China’s economic prospects. More worrying for metals investors was the broader deflationary effect of China’s processing capacity overhang in the EV, battery and renewables value chains. Trump 2.0 and his predilection for tariff diplomacy is now threatening to completely upend markets, stretching supply chains that were already under strain. Worse still perhaps, questions over delivery and longevity of US policy - and retaliatory measures - is transforming the risk around financial decisions.

To make sense of these seismic shifts, and their impact on the key commodities that underpin the energy transition, the Wood Mackenzie Future Facing Commodities Forum took place on 30 April 2025.