The view from England: Critical time for minerals

You don’t need to be a monarchist to have admired Queen Elizabeth II, who has died at the age of 96. She was famously discrete in her opinions and never gave an interview to the press. An exemplar of stability, resolve and duty, Queen Elizabeth had been on the throne since 1952, when she was only 25.

The reign of our 61st monarch (as a unified, identifiable country, starting with King Egbert in 827) incorporated 15 prime ministers (and 14 U.S. presidents), the latest being appointed just 48 hours before her death.

Liz Truss’s administration is starting with the nation in mourning, but the U.K. government will emerge having taken a significant step further to the right, especially with regard to the business environment. The incoming administration will likely reduce corporate bureaucracy and tax rates, and be more favourably disposed towards mining.

One of the incoming prime minister’s first announcements was to promote Kwasi Kwarteng from Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to become the first Black Chancellor of the Exchequer. Kwarteng was replaced at BEIS by industry-friendly Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities in Boris Johnson’s cabinet.

In one of his last acts at BEIS, Kwarteng launched the U.K.’s first Critical Minerals Strategy. As mentioned in this column six weeks ago, the government has identified 18 minerals that are considered critical.

As Kwarteng said in July, “The world in 2040 is expected to need four times as many critical minerals for clean energy technologies as it does today. However, critical mineral supply chains are complex and opaque, the market is volatile and distorted, and China is the dominant player.”

Many of the critical minerals on the U.K. list are battery related and from countries where the supply is anything but secure. However, critical minerals are country specific, and their criticality varies according to supply and demand, technological development and shifting societal needs. Most jurisdictions update their lists at least every three years.

The European Union currently has 30 minerals on its ‘critical’ list, with Canada listing 31 minerals and the U.S. designating 50 minerals as critical. The relative count is complicated by 14 of the 15 lanthanides being identified separately on the U.S. list (promethium is missing), whereas they are all combined under a ‘rare earth elements’ classification on the other three lists.

The European list includes bauxite, borate, coking coal, phosphate rock, phosphorus and strontium, which are on none of the other three lists. Only Canada includes copper, helium, molybdenum, potash and uranium. Critical minerals in the U.S. include arsenic, iridium, rubidium, ruthenium, yttrium and zirconium which are on none of the other lists. The U.K. list is the shortest, and does not include any uniquely critical minerals.

On all four lists are antimony, bismuth, cobalt, gallium, graphite, indium, lithium, magnesium, niobium, PGMs, rare earths, tantalum, tungsten and vanadium.

The EU’s list is updated every three years and has risen from the original 14 minerals described as critical in 2011. The third revision, in 2020, removed helium (due to a decline in its economic importance) and added bauxite, lithium, titanium and strontium.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s latest list, published in February, contains 15 more minerals than the first list in 2018, although much of this increase is the result of splitting the rare earth and platinum group elements into individual entries. The 2022 list also added nickel and zinc while removing helium, potash, rhenium and strontium.

Natural Resources Canada is working on a Critical Minerals Strategy, with the consultation period due to end on Sept. 15.

The need for these lists is clear. Germany’s Statista portal estimates that China last year produced almost 98% of the world’s gallium, and 84% of the bismuth, magnesium and tungsten. The EU calculates that China provides 98% of its rare earth elements, and warns the bloc is also vulnerable to Turkey (which provides almost all of its borate) and South Africa (providing 71% of the platinum demand).

With the soaring demand for electric vehicles and batteries, London-based Benchmark Mineral Intelligence recently calculated that almost 400 new mines (including 59 new lithium operations) might need to be built over the next decade to satisfy predicted mineral consumption.

At the end of August, the Ford Motor Company asked the Biden administration to speed up the permitting process for mining projects, particularly those targeting critical minerals. In a letter to the Department of the Interior, the auto maker said the current permitting process was “lengthy, costly and inefficient,” making it difficult for American businesses to invest in the extraction and processing of critical minerals in the country.

Meanwhile, Freeport-McMoRan has used testimony to the Interagency Working Group on Mining Reform, headed by the Department of the Interior, to lobby for the addition of copper to the department’s list of critical minerals (copper was omitted by the USGS on the grounds that there were no shortages of the metal). William Cobb, the mining company’s vice president for environmental services and sustainable development, said “Designation of copper as a critical mineral merely reflects reality at this point, and inclusion on the list will focus the federal government’s efforts on ensuring a healthy domestic supply of copper.” Rees-Mogg might agree; the red metal should surely be on everyone’s list.

Dr. Chris Hinde is a mining engineer and the director of Pick and Pen Ltd., a U.K.-based consulting firm. He previously worked for S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Metals and Mining division.