March Newsletter – 01.03.2021
HEADLINES
- Biden’s hopes for rare earth independence likely to be at least a decade away
- Tycoon Usmanov’s firms to build plant for greener iron products
- Nickel, cobalt price: 10 charts show China’s grip on battery supply chain to last decades
- China’s coal consumption share falls to 56.8% at end-2020
- First minerals exported from DRC with blockchain
- Innovation Metals Corp. Provides Market Commentary on Recent Rare-Earth Industry Developments
- Canada could be top player in global EV battery market — report
Biden’s hopes for rare earth independence likely to be at least a decade away
JOE Biden’s ambition to make the US less dependent on other nations for rare earths and minerals critical to the clean energy transition will take years to accomplish.
A review of the US critical minerals and rare earths supply chain that the president ordered last week is likely to show that even with sweeping changes, the nation is at least a decade from becoming self-sufficient.
That will mean turning to countries such as Canada, which has the the largest number of rare earth projects in the world, according to Gareth Hatch, managing director of Strategic Materials Advisors.
There’s far greater expertise in rare earths and critical minerals in Canada and Australia than there is in the US,” said Mr Hatch, who is also the CEO of Innovation Metals Corp, a subsidiary of Ucore Rare Metals, which has a rare-earth project in the US. “But the downstream markets are in the US, so it’s in the interest of all three countries to work together with the US being the ultimate end market.”
America lacks capacity to produce enough permanent magnets needed to run the engines of everything from missile guidance systems to the wind turbines and electric cars at the centre of the clean energy transition.
Miners say it takes so long to get federal and state environmental permits, and that the process is so unpredictable and open-ended, that they struggle to plan new mines.
The US has only one operational rare earths mine – the Mountain Pass site in California owned by MP Materials – with a handful of others a decade away from starting production.
Right now, the mined ore all gets sent to China for processing. In comparison, China has dozens of mines and hundreds of refining and separation facilities.
The Defense Department awarded MP Materials contracts to fund processing and separation of rare earths, putting it on track to become the only US company capable of doing so.
Tycoon Usmanov’s firms to build plant for greener iron products
Companies controlled by billionaire Alisher Usmanov will build a plant in central Russia to supply greener products used to make steel amid a growing focus to clean up the industry.
Metalloinvest’s Mikhailovsky GOK, one of the largest iron ore mining and processing facilities in Russia.
A joint venture between USM and its Metalloinvest Holding Co.’s iron ore mine will invest 40 billion rubles ($540 million) to build a facility to make 2 million tons of hot-briquetted iron, or HBI, a year, the companies said Sunday. The plant, in Russia’s Kursk region, will begin operations in 2024.
HBI is a briquetted form of direct reduced iron, and while it’s a more expensive ingredient in steel production, it leads to lower emissions. Turning the steel sector greener is crucial in the fight against climate change, with the industry accounting for about 7% of global carbon emissions.
https://www.mining.com/web/tycoon-usmanovs-firms-to-build-plant-for-greener-iron-products/
Nickel, cobalt price: 10 charts show China’s grip on battery supply chain to last decades
New study shows Asian cathode, precursor producers’ control of nickel, cobalt supply go way beyond long-term off-take agreements
50% of nickel battery precursor comes from integrated producers. Tsingshan nickel pig iron plant in Indonesia
While it was not named in the executive order, Beijing this week dismissed efforts by the US in a presidential decree to move supply chains for semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, batteries, critical minerals and strategic materials away from China.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said “artificial efforts to shift these chains and to decouple is not realistic,” urging Washington to “uphold the safety and reliability and stability of global supply chains.”
The Biden administration has acknowledged that making the US more self-sufficient would not be achieved overnight but the scale of the task may be underestimated.
In the battery supply chain for energy storage and electric vehicles, China’s command of the market is startling, and wresting it away is likely a decades-long process.
China’s coal consumption share falls to 56.8% at end-2020
The rapid rollout of renewable-energy capacity and the growing use of natural gas has helped reduce the share of coal consumption from around 68% over the last decade and 57.7% a year earlier, but overall coal use has not peaked.
China cut its coal use to 56.8% of energy consumption at the end of 2020, maintaining its target of below 58%, but overall coal consumption continued to rise amid record industrial output and the completion of dozens of coal-fired power plants.
The rapid rollout of renewable-energy capacity and the growing use of natural gas has helped reduce the share of coal consumption from around 68% over the last decade and 57.7% a year earlier, but overall coal use has not peaked.
Coal consumption in the world’s biggest coal user and greenhouse gas emitter grew 0.6% last year, the fourth consecutive increase, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday.
The share of “clean” energy – including natural gas, hydropower, nuclear and wind power – rose 1 percentage point to 24.3% of consumption, it said.
Energy consumption increased by 2.2% to 4.98 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent last year, with crude oil demand growing by 3.3% and natural gas by 7.2%.
China has pledged to halt the rise in its carbon emissions before 2030 with targets to control energy consumption, especially coal-burning, and improve energy efficiency.
The amount of carbon dioxide China emitted per unit of economic growth fell 1.0% last year, the agency said in a statement.
This “carbon intensity” has fallen about 19.2% since 2015, according to Reuters calculations based on official data, beating the five-year target of an 18% decline.
First minerals exported from DRC with blockchain
Minexx has exported minerals with full financial transparency from the Democratic Republic of Congo, by processing $250k of blockchain certified payments – a first for the industry.
This is a milestone for the sector as it secures the supply chain from the moment a mineral comes out of the ground to the point at which it enters end products such as smartphones and electric cars.
The demand for cobalt, copper, tin and tungsten has increased, but these minerals are often sourced by artisanal miners with 250 million people globally depending on this informal industry, many of whom are in sub-Saharan Africa.
“It is the most unsophisticated $100 billion market in the world,”
said Marcus Scaramanga, Minexx CEO said. “But now advances in technology, such as blockchain and digital payments, give us an opportunity to reshape this sector, from the moment a mineral comes out of the ground, tracing its journey into our consumer goods.”
Blockchain – the immutable digital ledger – plays a critical role in improving the traceability schemes. Coupled with digital payments, it brings the supply chain into the financial system.
https://www.mining.com/first-minerals-exported-from-drc-with-blockchain-payments/
Innovation Metals Corp. Provides Market Commentary on Recent Rare-Earth Industry Developments
TORONTO, Feb. 22, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Innovation Metals Corp. (“IMC” or the “Company”) is pleased to provide the following commentary on recent notable developments in the rare-earth elements (“REEs”) industry, in particular, as it pertains to the United States and allied nations. The increasing trade tensions between the People’s Republic of China (“China”) and the USA, in addition to China’s strong economic growth and resultant increased internal demand for REEs, has reintroduced the urgent need for a complete US domestic REE supply chain into the US national conversation.
On February 18, 2021, CNBC1 reported that the White House announced that it intends to issue a Presidential Executive Order, in the coming weeks, launching a comprehensive review of critical US supply chains, identifying immediate needs in specific critical areas, including critical minerals (including REEs), semiconductors (which require REE oxides to manufacture), and electric-vehicle/high-capacity batteries. It is believed that contingent on the findings of the review, the Biden Administration may consider issuing Presidential Determinations to invoke the Defense Productions Act (“DPA”) in order to reduce US dependence on foreign suppliers for technology, raw materials and strategic and critical materials. It should be noted that the Trump Administration previously issued Presidential Determinations on REEs, in July 2019. Of particular interest in the draft Executive Order obtained by CNBC, was specific wording focusing on materials or goods originating from or being transported through nations that could potentially become unfriendly to the USA, or which could potentially become geopolitically unstable in future.
Canada could be top player in global EV battery market — report
The only fully permitted cobalt refinery capable of producing battery grade material in North America is located in Ontario, Canada.
Canada has a sizeable opportunity to become one of the world’s leaders in the lithium-ion battery market, but that potential needs to be recognized and nurtured by regulators and miners, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence director Simon Moores told the House of Commons on Monday.
Moores, who joined a parliamentary discussion on Canada’s role in building a domestic and global lithium-ion battery ecosystem, said the combination of natural resources and a highly-skilled workforce should make it easy for the country to create a sustainable value chain for battery materials.
Canada is rich in lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, aluminum and manganese, key ingredients for advanced battery manufacturing and storage technology.
“Canada Has Sizeable Potential To Be One Of The Global Leaders Upstream Of The Lithium Ion Battery Ecosystem That The World Is Beginning To Build Out”
BMI director Simon Moores
Having most of the highly-demanded raw materials, however, is not enough. Without an ecosystem that allows for the creation of a market and industry for batteries, Canada could miss the chance to position itself as a top competitor in the global electric vehicles battery supply chain.
Value-adding, Moores said, could see Canada gaining a big piece of the growing lithium-ion and EVs market.
https://www.mining.com/canada-could-be-top-player-in-global-ev-battery-market-report/
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