In its Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reviews Morocco’s position in global critical minerals value chains, focusing on phosphate, cobalt, and graphite.
The report notes that Morocco holds 70% of the world’s phosphate reserves, although that status has not yet translated into a comparable share of production. The Kingdom currently accounts for about 15% of global mined phosphate supply, while China dominates extraction with 45% of 2025 production despite holding only 5% of global reserves. The United States ranks third, with about 10% of global supply.
For the purified phosphoric acid (PPA) segment, a key input for LFP cathodes, whose share of the global electric vehicle market reached 55% in 2025, up from 15% in 2020, Morocco is projected to account for only 5% of global production capacity by 2035, according to IEA projections, while China is expected to retain 75% of that capacity.
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The report’s authors note, however, that together Morocco, the United States, and Canada will account for more than 55% of planned PPA production capacity outside China by 2035.
The IEA says PPA prices rose by nearly 4% in the first quarter of 2026, exceeding $1,500 per metric ton, driven by higher sulfuric acid costs linked to the conflict in the Middle East and a surge in phosphate rock prices following Egypt’s suspension of phosphate exports, announced by the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.
The report also says that Morocco’s free trade agreements with the European Union and the United States allow battery supply chain projects financed by Chinese capital to benefit from preferential access to those markets, unlike exports shipped directly from China.
According to the IEA, this position has already enabled Morocco to attract major Chinese investments. The report cites Gotion, BTR, Huayou, and CNGR, which have launched projects in battery supply chains. The IEA says Morocco’s large phosphate reserves are among the main factors behind those investment decisions.
Cobalt and graphite
In addition to phosphate, the report identifies Morocco as an emerging player in two other strategic segments.
The first is cobalt. The IEA cites Managem’s project to convert its production of metallic cobalt from the Bou Azzer site into cobalt sulfate, a key component in electric vehicle batteries, with an estimated production capacity of 6 kilotons per year, including 1.2 kilotons of contained cobalt.
The report says the global cobalt sulfate market is expected to grow by nearly 60% by 2035 but remains concentrated in a limited number of operations outside China and Indonesia. It identifies the Moroccan project as one of the few diversification initiatives, alongside Umicore’s Kokkola cobalt refinery in Finland.
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The second strategic segment in which Morocco is investing is graphite. The report refers to the development of the Tangier anode plant, which, together with the Bécancour facility in Canada, is expected to produce about 20 kilotons of battery-grade coated spherical graphite by 2030.
The project forms part of a modest diversification of upstream natural graphite supply, as the share of the leading supplier, China, in global production declined from 84% in 2023 to about 80% in 2025, due in part to the restart of the Balama mine in Mozambique and partial production from the Lindi Jumbo project in Tanzania.
Morocco is therefore positioning itself among the few African countries that combine a natural resource base with a move toward higher-value processed battery materials, rather than simply exporting raw ore.
