Briefings
Supplier verification, origin logic, and procurement-grade methods. Focus on evidence and decision utility.
Latest brief
The EU's palm-oil biofuel phase-out, scored against what physically happened. It cut palm's role in European fuel by half, but the model evidence says most of that demand was displaced rather than eliminated, and the deforestation it meant to stop followed its own clock. Sourced to RED II, the WTO panels, USDA, GAPKI, and the peer-reviewed leakage literature.
Europe has a plan for the green transition but not for the multipolar world it has to be built in. Rare earths are the clearest case: the bottleneck is separation rather than mining, and the figures suggest the market will not rebuild it on its own even if Chinese supply is cut. Drawn from the price-to-gate screen on /data/mines/.
Europe legislated demand for critical minerals it cannot permit fast enough, and what it is short of is not ore but trusted, buildable projects. Finland's edge is openness and the institutions that turn ore into financeable mines, from Keliber's staged lithium chain to Terrafame's monitored discharge. Drawing on the A1AYN mines and mine-water data and the EU Critical Raw Materials Act.
The capstone of the ASEAN demographics series. The region is ageing faster, and at a fraction of the income, that Japan, Korea or China had when they aged. Its growth still runs on capital and labour, not productivity. Whether ASEAN can automate and lift output per worker before the workforce shrinks, and the power, skills and capital that gate it, is the question that decides the next two decades.
The positive case for ASEAN power, and what has to go right. Demand is growing about twice as fast as the world's, the region sits on roughly 20 TW of solar and wind potential, and in 2024 and 2025 the single-buyer model finally started to crack open. The constraint is no longer the resource. It is the grid and the money.
Thailand pays its old a basic pension of 600 baht a month, about a fifth of its own poverty line, and on the national accounts the state's net transfer to the elderly is close to zero. Old age in Thailand is carried by families and savings, not the state, just as the family is the thing an ageing, shrinking population is taking apart.
Thailand's births hit a 75-year low and its fertility, about 0.86, is below the UN's own forecast. WPP 2024 still splits Southeast Asia in two: the economies with the deepest supplier bases, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, are ageing fastest. The workers and the factories are no longer in the same countries, with the labour, care and property consequences.
Gasgrid wants to build more than 1,000 km of hydrogen pipeline, first costed at €3.5bn and later nearer €5bn, part of a roughly 4,750 km Finnish-linked corridor to Germany. Not one kilometre has reached a final investment decision, the anchor demand keeps stalling, and the promoters are still running calls for interest. A demand-first look at whether the business case is real, drawing on the A1AYN electricity-costs and hydrogen-pipelines data.
Where the global vegetable oil market sits at the end of May 2026: Indonesia's B40 to B50 trajectory, Malaysia's B15 rollout from June 1, Thailand's conflicted blend policy, El Niño on the 2026 palm crop, Brent at $100, Ukrainian sunflower export disruption, India's 2025 duty reset as the demand baseline, and the food side as residual claimant. Sourced to USDA FAS, GAPKI, OECD-FAO, primary national regulations, and current market reporting.
Where CBAM sits in May 2026: the live EUA price, the statutory phase-in schedule, the post-2024 European Parliament arithmetic, the competitiveness trade-offs for EU industry, and the regulatory horizon to 2030. Sourced to primary regulatory texts, IEA, IEEFA, Eurofer and the European Parliament register.
Why supplier discovery remains difficult despite directories, trade fairs, and digital platforms.
Historical trade trends, sectoral shifts, and future scenarios shaping EU–Thailand trade amid geopolitical fragmentation.