Venezuelan extra-heavy crude to diesel, asphalt and aluminium anodes
Oil so thick it will not flow down a pipe, and cannot be refined by most refineries on Earth.
Venezuela → United States → United Arab Emirates
7 etapas 3 países 1,000 barrels → 880 barrels equivalent
Saudi Arab Light to petrol, almost anywhere
The same commodity, a fraction of the effort — because of what the molecule is.
Saudi Arabia → South Korea
5 etapas 2 países 1,000 barrels → 990 barrels equivalent
Alberta oil sands: mined like ore, refined like oil
The only oil in the world that is dug up with a shovel and graded like an orebody.
Canada → United States
5 etapas 2 países 1,000 tonnes → 700 barrels
Chilean brine to a battery in a car
The ore is water. The first year and a half of processing is done by the sun, for free.
Chile → China → Germany
7 etapas 3 países 1,000,000 litres → 8 kg
Australian spodumene to a battery, the fast way
Eight weeks instead of eighteen months, at the cost of a great deal more energy.
Australia → China → South Korea → United States
6 etapas 4 países 1,000 tonnes → 8 kg
New Caledonian laterite to stainless steel
An island that smelts its own ore, and pays for it with the most expensive electricity in the industry.
New Caledonia → Japan
5 etapas 2 países 1,000 tonnes → 19 tonnes
Indonesian laterite to a battery cathode
A country that banned raw ore exports and built the processing industry instead.
Indonesia → China
6 etapas 2 países 1,000 tonnes → 11 tonnes
Chilean sulfide concentrate to Chinese cathode to a wire
Chile mines the most copper in the world. China refines the most. Those are not the same sentence.
Chile → China
6 etapas 2 países 1,000 tonnes → 5 tonnes
Congolese oxide ore to finished cathode, without a smelter
When the ore is oxide, acid will do what a smelter would otherwise have to.
Democratic Republic of the Congo → South Africa → China
5 etapas 3 países 1,000 tonnes → 25 tonnes
Congolese cobalt to a battery cathode
A metal almost nobody mines on purpose, carried out of a landlocked country by truck.
Democratic Republic of the Congo → Tanzania → China → South Korea → Germany
6 etapas 5 países 1,000 tonnes → 4 tonnes
Australian rare earths to a magnet in a motor
Mined in Australia, cracked in Malaysia, magnetised in China, and fitted in Germany.
Australia → Malaysia → China → Germany
8 etapas 4 países 1,000 tonnes → 2 tonnes
Southern Chinese clay to the dysprosium that lets a magnet run hot
Grades under a tenth of a percent, and almost the only heavy rare earths on the market.
China → Germany
5 etapas 2 países 1,000 tonnes → 15 kg
Guinean bauxite to an aluminium window frame
Four tonnes of tropical soil, two tonnes of white powder, one tonne of metal — and the metal is made wherever the power is cheapest.
Guinea → China → United Arab Emirates → Germany
5 etapas 4 países 1,000 tonnes → 250 tonnes
Pilbara iron ore to Chinese steel
The largest material flow on Earth: dig it, crush it, screen it, and put it on a boat.
Australia → China
6 etapas 2 países 1,000 tonnes → 620 tonnes
Kazakh uranium to a fuel assembly in a reactor
The most tightly watched journey in this atlas: every kilogram is accounted for, at every border.
Kazakhstan → Canada → France
6 etapas 3 países 200 tonnes → 25 tonnes
A quarry in North Carolina to the chip in your phone
The most valuable sand on Earth, and almost all of it comes from one small district.
United States → Germany → China → Japan → Taiwan → Vietnam
6 etapas 6 países 1,000 kg → 8,000 wafers
Leia estes como pares
Cada uma destas duas rotas transporta a mesma commodity. O que as distingue é o que o material é fisicamente.
Venezuelan extra-heavy crude to diesel, asphalt and…
If this had been light sweet crude instead
Saudi Arab Light to petrol, almost anywhere
The same product from a much harder barrel
Alberta oil sands: mined like ore, refined like oil
The same upgrade-or-export choice, in Venezuela
Chilean brine to a battery in a car
The same element out of hard rock instead
Australian spodumene to a battery, the fast way
The same element out of brine instead
New Caledonian laterite to stainless steel
The other laterite route, into batteries instead
A forma geral, sem as fronteiras
Cadeias de abastecimento →Se pretende as etapas sem um país específico associado a cada uma, as páginas de cadeia de fornecimento apresentam os mesmos materiais de forma abstrata.