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UNECE Press Conference - Critical Minerals: myths and realities
Middle East war: After oil and gas shortages, concerns grow over critical minerals crunch
The shipping crisis in the Strait of Hormuz caused by war in the Middle East has exposed a new threat: a looming shortage of strategic minerals needed to drive economies all over the world and a race by countries to obtain them.
STORY: Critical minerals crunch - UNECE
TRT: 2’59”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH, NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 23 APRIL 2026, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
Speaker:
- Dario Liguti, Director, Sustainable Energy Division, UNECE
- Exterior wide shot, United Nations flag flying.
- Wide shot of panel at press briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Dario Liguti, Director, Sustainable Energy Division, UNECE: “The impact of the Gulf War, it is not only is in the energy market, it's been impacting as well some sub-products coming from oil, and you mentioned sulphur correctly, but helium as well, and then naphtha, which are byproducts of the oil refining and are used in different processes.”
- Medium-wide, podium speakers, TV screen showing speaker.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Dario Liguti, Director, Sustainable Energy Division, UNECE: “If the situation – if the conflict situation - continues, the shortages will become evident and will be bring, will force industries to lower their production of certain technologies, you know, and particularly critical minerals for renewable energy equipment, for example, digital technologies, for that purpose as well. And therefore over time, that will have an increasing impact on prices first of this equipment and then secondly on the availability of that equipment if the conflict continues.”
- Wide, podium speakers, journalists.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Dario Liguti, Director, Sustainable Energy Division, UNECE: “The first reaction besides of course the increase in prices will be industries lowering their use and therefore lowering their production of whether it's solar panels, whether it's magnets, whether it's batteries, et cetera, going forward.”
- Wide, Press room, participants.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Dario Liguti, Director, Sustainable Energy Division, UNECE: “What I can tell you is there is a drive from many Member States around the world to secure those minerals, and we will see increasingly Member States building strategic stocks of those minerals to avoid going into the future or facing into the future this sort of situation.”
- Wide shot of panel, photographer.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Dario Liguti, Director, Sustainable Energy Division, UNECE: “So far, the situation is being felt in some regional markets, particularly in South Asia and Southeast Asia, where there is a lot of refining and processing going on of these initial commodities. But over time, the geographical scope will become larger.”
- Wide, Press room, screens showing speaker.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH): Dario Liguti, Director, Sustainable Energy Division, UNECE: “So you can see how a crisis which is fundamentally focused on the on the old traditional fossil fuels sector, how that that impacts as well the new energy, the new renewable energy, and the transition that we have been undertaking and we actually need to accelerate, as you know, as we are falling behind in the Paris 2030 targets”.
- Medium, photographer
- Medium, journalist.
- Medium, journalist.
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