minerals scarcity - a ‘non-issue’? · † conclusions and future challenges boulby potash mine,...

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Minerals scarcity - a ‘non-issue’?

Gus Gunn, British Geological Survey&

Peter Buccholz, German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources


Talk outline• Introduction

• Demand – past and present

• Supply challenges

• Resources and reserves – what are they?

• Mineral scarcity - how much is left? Models for mineral depletion

• Supply solutions – focus on increased technical availability of primary mineral resources

• Conclusions and future challenges

Boulby potash mine, England


Supply of natural resources – mineral deposits

• “If it can’t be grown it has to be mined”

• A mineral deposit is an accumulation of a mineral(s) that may be economically valuable

• Mineral deposits are rare, they are concentrations in a small volume of the earth’s crust, unevenly distributed throughout the earth

• Value depends on quantity, quality, mining/processing costs, rarity, price, etc

• Minerals are where you find them – you can’t locate a mineanywhere!


Increasing global demand for minerals

Iron ore

bauxite

PGM

Lithium minerals

Tantalum and niobium concentrates

Data from British Geological Survey

212Mt

768Mt

58Mt

2.2 billion tonnes

Copyright © 2009 Rio Tinto


Supply challenges – accessibility and availability• Accessibility

- social and cultural constraints- politics, legislation and regulation- environmental issues- economics

• Availability- new discoveries required to replace depleted

deposits- exploration technology- mining, processing and beneficiation

technology- recycling, substitution, increased resource

efficiency will make major contributions- artisanal and small-scale mining


Some fundamental terms for policy and investment decisions

• Resources• Reserves• Require clear, unambiguous

and standardised terminology

© Museo regionale di Scienze Naturali di Torino

© Lonmin

Platinum nugget to platinum mine


Resource Base

Mineral resources and reserves

ResourcesReserve Base

Reserves

The quantity of a mineral commodity found in subsurface resources, which are both known

and profitable to exploit with existing technology, prices and other conditions

A concentration of a mineral commodity of which the location, grade, quality, and

quantity are known or estimated from specific geological evidence

A related measure to reserves which

is slightly larger than reserves

All of a mineral commodity

contained in the earths crust,

discovered and undiscovered

Sub-divided in order of increasing

geological confidence


Minerals scarcity –how much is left?


Three types of mineral scarcity• Absolute

- depletion of all resources (discovered and undiscovered)

• Temporary- supply cannot match demand, long lead times for

new capacity

- many varied causes – new technologies, politics (trade restrictions, resource nationalism), accidents, strikes, inadequate infrastructure, etc

• Structural- applies chiefly to technology metals which are by-

products from ores of major (carrier) metals

- lack own production infrastructure; complex supply-demand patterns, technology and investment needs

Copyright © 2009 Rio Tinto


Structural scarcity -the metal wheel(after Reuter et al. 2005 and Verhoef et al. 2004)

major carrier metals

co- and by-products with own production infrastructure

by-products with little or no own production infrastructure

residues and emissions


“The Limits to Growth”• Essay on the principle of population as

it affects the future improvement of society (Malthus 1798)

• The Coal Question … and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal Mines (Jevons, 1865)

• President’s Material Policy Commission (1950-1952)

• The Limits to Growth (The Club of Rome, Meadows et al. 1972)

- “only 550 billion barrels of oilremained and that they would run out by 1990”

Rev Thomas Malthus 1766-1834


“On borrowed time?”

Perspectives on the ‘Environmental Limits’ concept (Turner et al. 2007)

Metal stocks and sustainability(Gordon et al. 2006)

Assessing the long-run availability of copper (Tilton and Lagos, 2007)

Earth’s natural wealth: an audit(Cohen, 2007)

Countdown – are the Earth’s mineral resources running out? Mining Journal (2008)

Peak Minerals(Bardi and Pagani, 2007)Peak Minerals in AustraliaGiurco et al. 2010

Rare metals getting rarer(Ragnarsdottir, 2008) Nature

The disappearing nutrient(Gilbert, 2009) Nature


Fixed-stock paradigm

• Earth is finite; resources are finite – a fixed stock

• Demand does not cease: it continues and is generally increasing

• Physical depletion is the inevitable result

• Scarcity leads to escalating prices, reduced demand and thus economic depletion rather than resource depletion


Reserve baseNumber Years left =

Annual global consumption

‘Earth’s natural wealth: an audit’(New Scientist, 2007)

• Conclude - antimony “will run out in 15 years, silver in 10 and indium in under 5”


Shortcomings of the fixed stock approach• Fixed stock (resource base) for many commodities is very large• Resources and reserves are not static, and are poorly known• Recycling, re-use and substitution are possible• Consumption rates are unknown

Undiscovered

Resources

Resources

Reserves

Reserve base

identified undiscovered

RESERVES - the quantity of a mineral commodity found in resources, which are both

known and profitable to exploit with existing technology, prices and other conditions


4

8

12

16

1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

20

40

60

80

1987: 39 years2008: 36 years

2008: 14.4 Mio. t

1960: 4.2 Mio. t

CopperM

io. t

year

s

0,4

0,8

1,2

1,6

2060

100140

1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Mio

. tye

ars

Nickel

1960: 0.34 Mio. t

2008: 1.5 Mio. t

1987: 63 years 2008: 46 years

0

10

20

300

200

400

600

t

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

year

s

Indium

1972: 66.4 t

2007: 563 t

1989: 15 years

2007: 19 years

10

30

50

70

1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

100

300

500

year

s1.

000

t Cobalt

1960: 14.734 t

2008: 63,783 t

1988: 125 years 2008: 111 years

Mine production (for indium, refinery production) Data sources: USGS, BGR database, 2009*Before 1988, the USGS only classified reserves

Static life time of reserve base*Static life time of reserves

Static life time – the reality


Resource estimations – what do we really know?

• USGS – global leaders in the field

– Mineral Commodity Summaries(reserve and reserve base – latter discontinued)

– range of sources (inconsistencies)

– vary widely with time (as would be expected) e.g. copper “recent assessment of U.S. copper resources indicated 550 million tons of copper in identified and undiscovered resources, more than double the previous estimate”


How has demand been met up to now?

Photo courtesy of the Diavik Diamond Mine

• Increased exploration expenditure and success rate

• Improved understanding of how deposits form - used to predict where deposits are located

• New deposit classes

• New technology for new ore types, lower grade ores, deeper deposits (exploration, mining, processing, etc)

• New baseline geoscience datasets

• New frontiers, new target areas / revisit old targets


New deposit classes - Iron oxide-Copper-Gold (IOCG)

• Large, multi-commodity deposits– >1000 Mt– Fe, Cu, Au (REE, U, P, Ag, F, Ba, Co)

• Type example is Olympic Dam, South Australia– discovered in 1975 beneath 600m of cover – largest uranium deposit in the world– 4th largest remaining copper deposit– 5th largest gold deposit

• Other ‘IOCG’ deposits known but no unifying genetic model– Mauritania, Sweden, Chile, China, and

Queensland


New frontiers, new terranes and old terranes


Resources on the seabedPolymetallic massive sulphides• Cu-Zn-Au-Ag deposits in SW Pacific,

New Zealand, Japan, etc

• Nautilus Minerals, Neptune Minerals

• Mining planned for 2012 offshore Papua New Guinea

• Resources of sea-bed cobalt and nickel are comparable in size to those on land

Manganese nodules and cobalt-rich crusts


‘New’ terranes• Application of existing geological models to previously

unexplored terranes– political restrictions or conflicts e.g. Soviet Union, Iran, DRC,

Afghanistan, Zimbabwe

– inaccessibility e.g. Mongolia

– lack of perceived mineral potential e.g. Baluchistan

– lack of data e.g. diamonds in Arctic Canada


‘Old’ targets in ‘old’ terranes• Lumwana copper-cobalt, NW Zambia

– 342.5 Mt @ 0.74% Cu (2009, measured/indicated)– 563.1 Mt @ 0.63% Cu (inferred)– with Co, Au and U– copper production 172,000 tpa (37 years from 2009)

• Hemerdon tungsten, Devon, UK

– operated during World War II– Amax re-evaluated the deposit in late 1970s;

permission granted in 1986– Wolf Minerals updating feasibility in 2010– 218.5 Mt @ 0.18% WO3 and 0.02% Sn

(2010, most in measured category)– very large, low grade deposit


New research for improved supply security• Metallogenic studies, both in deep and surficial

environments (low C deposits, more easily processed)

• Exploration methods, especially for deep, buried deposits

• Improved knowledge of EU indigenous resources

• Focus on critical minerals – knowledge base limited for many because historical consumption minor e.g. REE, Ta, In, Ge, Te, etc


Mining and processing technology for primary ores

• Underground bulk mining - going deeper (Deepest underground mines <4 km; most exploration drilling < 250 m; crust is 35 km thick! )

• Solution mining – in-situ extraction of U, Cu

• Heap leaching – improved energy efficiency – Cu, Au, Ni, U

• Processing technology – new and more complex ores, lower grades, cleaner processing e.g SX-EW Cu and Zn; Ni laterites

• Wastes from former mining activities e.g. Cu, Co in DRC


Conclusions• Metal scarcity is a ‘non-issue’, but access to resources is not• Primary ores will continue to be the main source of future

supply of metals in the future• Current reserves are unreliable indicators of future

availability of minerals• Falling production is not the same as resource depletion• Investment and policy decisions should be based on high

quality data and clear terminology• Research is required on all parts of the commodity life cycle –

from cradle to grave• Focus on critical minerals and on indigenous resources to

ensure security of supply (production of some metals highly concentrated in a few countries at present)


Challenges for sustainable minerals supply

• What should be of concern is not the limited extent of reserves, but how reserves are replenished

• Particular attention should be given to the technology metals which currently lack own production infrastructure

• Energy, environmental and social costs may be the main constraints on future consumption and production

• Can we afford the carbon cost of recovering low grades from primary and waste materials?

• Decarbonation of resource use presents a major scientific and technical challenge

minerals scarcity - a ‘non-issue’? · † conclusions and future challenges boulby potash mine,...

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