About Non Ferrous Flows
Put simply: Non Ferrous Flows is a newsletter dedicated to examining changes throughout the metals value chain, and understanding how both businesses and governments adapt to these environments. New rules about supply chain vulnerabilities, global decouplings, and industrial state policy are all poised to take a front seat in the coming decade. Many of these changes, whether it’s Indonesian ore processing requirements, “Inflation Reduction Act” American import exemptions, or Chinese green energy goals, are already taking place, transforming global metals markets. These distortions naturally provide firms with both new opportunities and potential catastrophes for those left behind.
Non Ferrous Flows doesn’t aim to concentrate on day-to-day news or breaking developments. Instead, it provides deeper dives into trends changing the global flows of minerals and metals. The most prominently discussed will be nickel and copper, but other mining products including but not limited to aluminum, cobalt, and zinc will also have their days in the sun. In a blasphemous contradiction of the newsletter’s title, ferronickel will also be discussed. Apologies in advance.
Although the newsletter will examine North America and the Asia-Pacific, Non Ferrous Flows will concentrate disproportionately on two countries. Firstly, China. As of the 2020s, the metals world revolves around China as the largest, and often, majority consumer of most metals. Secondly, Indonesia. Behind the momentum of the global energy transition, Indonesia has situated itself as an incumbent mineral superpower. The Archipelago, perpetually undercovered in English media, has recently been in the news as nickel has captured the attention of the business world, but its geological riches go far beyond that. With this in mind, Non Ferrous Flows will also publish translations of Chinese and Indonesian language works, giving Anglophones a window into those markets.
Suggestions, criticism, and feedback, both positive and negative, are warmly welcomed. Further citations are available upon request.
About Me
My name is Zachary Parsons, but you can call me Zach. After growing up in Toronto, I did my undergrad at the University of Toronto, with stints studying in Hong Kong and Melbourne. Afterwards, I did my MPhil in Chinese Studies at St. Antony’s College, Oxford. Post-Oxford, I’m currently at Peking University in Beijing as a Yenching Scholar, where I research commodity markets, mineral economics, and international business, concentrating on metals and mining supply chains.
Outside of commodities, I enjoy canoeing, coding baseball sabermetrics, reading Chinese philosophy, and speaking Indonesian.