Critical Minerals Markets, Supply Chains and U.S. Export Specialist

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Opportunity track: SEA / GLOBAL
Engagement: Contingent individual consultant; engagement may be direct or through an eligible U.S. consulting firm
Location: Remote — United States, with possible international travel
Primary promotion location: Washington, DC 20001
Anticipated consulting fee: $125–$250 per hour, or a negotiated fixed price by work package

The opportunity

Axyde is building a senior expert bench for anticipated U.S. government-funded project-scoping assignments involving critical-minerals exploration, extraction, processing, refining, recycling, associated infrastructure, and downstream supply chains across the Indo-Pacific and other global markets.

The selected specialist will help Axyde determine whether proposed projects address credible market needs, strengthen diversified and resilient supply chains, possess commercially supportable product and customer strategies, and create realistic opportunities for U.S. equipment, technology, software, and services. Assignments may begin with incomplete or inconsistent market data and require rapid, independent, and defensible conclusions.

Axyde welcomes specialists with deep expertise in one or more mineral value chains, market-analysis methods, industrial-policy questions, trade and logistics, customer qualification, procurement, or U.S. export opportunities. Applicants are not expected to cover every critical mineral or downstream industry.

Potential responsibilities

• Analyze reserves and resources, mine and processing capacity, announced projects, production, inventories, demand, prices, costs, trade flows, geographic concentration, and supply-chain vulnerabilities.
• Evaluate data quality and reconcile government, company, customs, market-intelligence, technical, and interview-based sources with transparent assumptions and limitations.
• Assess feedstock security, processing bottlenecks, intermediate and finished-product specifications, logistics, storage, traceability, qualification pathways, and customer-acceptance requirements.
• Evaluate project positioning within upstream, midstream, and downstream value chains, including likely customers, competitors, substitute materials, recycling, and technology change.
• Review offtake, tolling, marketing, aggregation, strategic-stockpile, floor-price, prepayment, and other commercial structures at a project-scoping level.
• Assess market-entry barriers, procurement practices, local-content requirements, tariffs, trade measures, subsidies, sanctions, applicable foreign-entity restrictions, and other relevant policy considerations without providing legal advice.
• Identify credible opportunities for U.S. equipment, technology, software, engineering, environmental services, logistics, finance, and other project inputs.
• Identify prospective U.S. suppliers and compare their likely competitiveness, technical fit, localization needs, commercial constraints, and relevant foreign competition.
• Develop or independently review market, supply, demand, price, export-value, and scenario assumptions used in preliminary project economic and financial analysis.
• Conduct targeted mineral, technology, end-use, supplier, competitor, and country deep dives.
• Develop or review research tasks, data requirements, stakeholder plans, deliverables, schedules, and budgets for feasibility studies, technical assistance, pilots, market studies, or supply-chain assessments.
• Participate in interviews with miners, processors, recyclers, manufacturers, traders, logistics providers, utilities, government officials, financiers, development institutions, prospective customers, and U.S. suppliers.
• Contribute to concept consultations, initial assessments, project reports, presentations, implementation recommendations, risk registers, export estimates, and monitoring metrics.
• Clearly distinguish observed facts, sourced estimates, modeled scenarios, interview evidence, professional judgments, and unresolved uncertainties.

Required qualifications

• At least 10 years of directly relevant experience in critical-minerals markets, commodity analysis, mining or processing strategy, industrial supply chains, procurement, industrial policy, international trade, or related advisory work.
• Demonstrated expertise in one or more critical-mineral value chains and an understanding of how product form, purity, specifications, qualification, logistics, and end use affect marketability.
• Experience translating imperfect market evidence into practical commercial conclusions, development options, scopes of work, decision criteria, and risk-mitigation measures.
• Ability to analyze market and policy considerations without presenting uncertain forecasts as facts or overstating the precision of non-transparent market data.
• Strong analytical writing, source evaluation, quantitative reasoning, and stakeholder-interview skills.
• Ability to work under compressed schedules and document sources, assumptions, calculations, and limitations clearly.
• Contract-required status: The individual performing the work must be either a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident of the United States (green-card holder). Other forms of U.S. work authorization do not satisfy the stated requirements of the anticipated contracts. A consultant engaged directly as an individual must maintain a principal place of business in the United States. A consultant proposed through a firm must be employed or engaged through an entity that independently satisfies the solicitation’s U.S.-firm requirements.

Preferred qualifications

• Degree in economics, finance, business, engineering, geology, metallurgy, public policy, international trade, supply-chain management, or another relevant discipline.
• Quantitative market-modeling capability, including scenario, sensitivity, trade-flow, cost-curve, or supply-demand analysis.
• Experience with U.S. manufacturers, defense or energy supply chains, government agencies, strategic-stockpile programs, export-credit agencies, multilateral development banks, or development-finance institutions.
• Familiarity with offtake, tolling, qualification, aggregation, recycling, responsible-sourcing, traceability, or strategic-procurement arrangements.
• Experience assessing U.S. export potential and identifying actual U.S. suppliers for international projects.
• Expertise covering battery materials, rare earths, gallium, graphite, lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, antimony, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, or other strategic materials.
• Regional experience in Latin America, Europe and Eurasia, Africa and the Middle East, or the Indo-Pacific.

Engagement conditions

This is a contingent consulting opportunity, not an offer of full-time employment. No award, assignment, minimum number of hours, or minimum compensation is guaranteed. Engagement depends on contract award, assignment fit, eligibility, conflicts, availability, successful completion of Axyde’s due diligence, and agreement on scope and pricing. The stated fee range is an anticipated range; the final rate or fixed price will depend on experience, role, work-package requirements, and applicable cost-reasonableness requirements.

Some assignments may require rapid research, interviews, irregular coordination across time zones, or international travel. Travel requirements, approvals, insurance, information-access conditions, and reimbursable costs will be addressed in the applicable consulting agreement or work order.

Participation in a U.S. Trade and Development Agency project-scoping assignment may make the participating consultant or subcontracting entity ineligible to compete—whether as a prime contractor, subcontractor, or otherwise—for certain USTDA-funded follow-on activities resulting from that assignment, unless USTDA grants a waiver. Axyde will disclose the applicable restriction and obtain written acceptance before issuing a work order.

Selected specialists may be asked for written permission to include their name, qualifications, and resume in a proposal. Applying does not by itself authorize Axyde to represent that an applicant has committed to a proposal or assignment.

Work performed under an awarded contract will be subject to applicable confidentiality, data-rights, information-security, professional-responsibility, and conflict-of-interest requirements. Any proprietary databases, licensed market information, models, methodologies, or background intellectual property should be identified before an assignment begins.

How to apply

Apply through Axyde’s online application form using the heading SEA/GLOBAL – Critical Minerals Markets, Supply Chains and U.S. Export Specialist. Please provide:

• A resume or CV of no more than three pages.
• Two or three concise, directly relevant project examples identifying your role, mineral or product, geography, value-chain segment, principal market or supply-chain questions, analytical methods, and the resulting work product or decision.
• Your principal mineral, product, end-market, regional, and methodological areas of expertise.
• Your U.S. location, travel availability, availability during the anticipated performance period, and proposed hourly rate or fixed-price basis.
• A self-attestation that you are either a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident and, if you would contract directly as an individual, that your principal place of business is in the United States. Applicants proposing engagement through a firm should identify the firm and confirm that it meets the applicable solicitation definition of a U.S. firm.
• Any commercial databases or analytical tools you are licensed to use, without providing passwords, license keys, or restricted extracts.
• Any known organizational conflicts, financial interests, current client restrictions, supplier or customer relationships, or planned pursuits of potentially related USTDA-funded work.

Do not submit a passport, green card, Social Security number, passwords, license keys, material nonpublic information, proprietary database extracts, export-controlled information, source-selection-sensitive information, or client-confidential material. Public, authorized, and appropriately anonymized project descriptions are sufficient for the initial application. Axyde will request only the documentation and information needed at the appropriate stage of selection and engagement.

Axyde considers qualified applicants without regard to any status protected by applicable law. The citizenship or permanent-residence limitation above applies solely to work covered by the stated U.S. government contract requirements.