When Maruti Suzuki cut the near-term output of its e-Vitara by two-thirds this month after China tightened the tap on rare-earth magnets, the vulnerability of India’s clean-tech ambitions was laid bare. New Delhi’s quiet dispatch of geologists to Zambia, where 9,000 sq. km of the Copperbelt now stand reserved for Indian exploration, is therefore less a mineral adventure than a strategic necessity.
Copper and cobalt sit at the heart of both the green-mobility revolution and a fast-modernising armed forces. Copper conducts every watt in an electric drivetrain and forms the wiring nerves of missiles, radars and naval propulsion. Cobalt stabilises high-energy batteries and hardens the super-alloys inside jet engines. Without secure flows of these two metals the twin national targets—30 per cent electric-vehicle (EV) sales by 2030 and defence exports of ₹50,000 crore by 2029—will remain PowerPoint ambitions.
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Metals that make the transition possible
Global demand for copper is projected by UN Trade & Development to jump more than 40 per cent by 2040 as electrification and digitalisation accelerate. A battery-electric car contains roughly four times the copper of a petrol vehicle, and offshore wind farms require about 8–10 tonnes per megawatt of installed capacity. Cobalt may face chemistry-saving innovation, yet it still anchors high-nickel cathodes that power long-range cars, drones and submarine-launched missiles.
Defence applications are less visible but equally metal-intensive. Active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, combat communication vehicles and naval integrated-power systems all rely on high-conductivity copper and temperature-resistant cobalt magnets. As the Services pivot to electric logistics vehicles and directed-energy weapons, military demand is poised to rise even faster than civilian consumption.
China’s processing grip
Domestic production can meet barely a third of India’s refined-copper needs. After the 2018 closure of the Sterlite smelter, copper imports climbed to 1.2 million tonnes in FY 2024-25, a 4 per cent year-on-year rise. Public data show domestic smelters turning out only 573,000 tonnes against demand of roughly 1.8 million. Nearly all cobalt is imported; shipments of cobalt oxide reached 693 tonnes last year, up one-fifth on FY 2023-24.
The bottleneck is not geology but processing dominance. China controls about half of global copper smelting capacity and roughly three-quarters of refined cobalt output. It also refines over 90 per cent of rare-earth magnets—the choke that tripped Maruti Suzuki. The result is a single point of failure stretching from the lithium-ion cell to the gun barrel.
Zambia for copper, cobalt
Zambia’s ore grades rank among the highest in the world, and its government moved with rare speed to allocate exploration acreage to India on a government-to-government basis. Over the next three years the Geological Survey of India will sample, map and model deposits, after which a mining lease and an invitation to Indian public-sector and private miners are expected.
The arrangement dovetails neatly with January’s National Critical Mineral Mission (₹16,300 crore over seven years), which earmarks funds for overseas acquisitions, domestic processing and technology partnerships. It also aligns with India’s quiet outreach to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania—together forming an emerging arc of critical-mineral partnerships across Africa.
De-risking the EV and defence value chains
Factory capacity is not the near-term bottleneck: announced cell projects already add up to more than 100 GWh by 2030, although firm construction today is closer to 30 GWh. The weak link is upstream material. Copper shortages raise cable prices; cobalt scarcity forces cell makers back to lower-energy chemistries. Owning—or at least holding a secure offtake right in—an upstream Zambian asset offers bargaining power over concentrate supply and the option of refining at home.
A domestic smelting and refining circuit would insulate India from maritime disruption in the Red Sea or South China Sea, allow blending of imported concentrate with modest domestic ore, and feed directly into the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) programme for advanced chemistry cells. Each tonne of Zambian copper landed at Visakhapatnam or Mundra is a tonne not routed through Shanghai; every kilogram of cobalt refined in Gujarat rather than Guangdong strengthens the hand of Indian cathode fabricators when they negotiate technology licences.
A crowded geopolitical scramble
Copper’s strategic salience is no longer contested. The White House warned in February that “excessive dependence on foreign copper” jeopardises U.S. defence capability. Beijing, confronted by its own ore shortages, has slowed smelter approvals and unleashed state giants to lock up mine contracts in Chile and Peru. The European Union, concerned about carbon leakage, is weighing green-tariff penalties on metal produced in coal-fired smelters. Early movers will secure discounts and exert price influence; laggards will pay scarcity premia.
For India the risk is double-edged: losing ground to Chinese buyers in Africa, and confronting tariffs or sanctions that could penalise defence exports assembled with “unclean” or insecurely sourced metal. A foothold in Zambia therefore conveys both economic advantage and diplomatic signalling power.
What must be done next
Compress the exploration-to-production timeline: Statutory deadlines—measured in months, not years—are needed for converting discoveries into mining leases. Digital-twin modelling and remote-sensing data should be deployed to shorten feasibility studies.
Rebuild refining muscle at home: A five-year window of duty-free concentrate imports, accelerated depreciation for smelting equipment and viability-gap funding for zero-liquid-discharge effluent plants can revive an industry scarred since 2018.
Anchor project goodwill in Zambia: Local procurement targets, vocational training programmes and part-funding of a downstream alloy plant in Ndola would cement community support and dilute resource-nationalism risk.
Close the recycling loop: The government’s draft incentive scheme for recovering critical minerals from spent batteries and e-waste must be finalised this fiscal year to complement overseas sourcing with domestic circularity.
Securing metals is now as vital as securing oil once was. The Zambia pact is a laboratory of execution: geological data must convert into commercial mining, concentrates into refined metal, and refined metal into competitive batteries and defence hardware. Success would justify the launch, in the next Union Budget, of an Indo-African Minerals Corridor that bundles concessional finance, technology transfer and transparent governance across copper- and cobalt-rich nations.
Should India hesitate, the scene at Maruti’s EV line—idle robots awaiting a missing magnet—could become an industrial commonplace. The choice is stark: move metal from the Copperbelt to Indian foundries, or watch the energy-transition train depart from someone else’s platform.