Mining Stock Daily

The $500 Billion Void: How a Decade of Underinvestment Created the 2026 Commodity 'Pinch Point'

Jan 13, 2026
Robert Mullin, CIO and Portfolio Manager at Marathon Resource Advisors, sheds light on the decade of underinvestment in the natural resources sector that's shaping the 2026 commodity cycle. He discusses the dramatic drop in capital expenditures and its impact on supply pinch points as global demand rises. Mullin highlights the shift from Western investors to gold buyers and warns of gut-wrenching volatility in the market. He also critiques the unrealistic expectations around Venezuelan oil recovery due to its devastated infrastructure.
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INSIGHT

Geopolitics Drove Demand For Strategic Metals

  • Commodity interest broadened from gold to copper and strategic metals as geopolitical imperatives rose.
  • Markets priced in strategic importance and future demand, not just current tightness.
INSIGHT

Policy Can Rapidly Shift Strategic-Metals Supply

  • Government funding can quickly eliminate 'rare' supply concentration, potentially creating oversupply in some strategic metals.
  • Processing capacity and environmental constraints remain the bigger bottleneck than raw physical supply.
INSIGHT

Refining Capacity Faces Power And Bandwidth Limits

  • Building domestic smelting and refining is strategic but competes with massive power and data-center demand.
  • Power constraints and affordability will limit how fast Western processing capacity expands.
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