Guest Post: Copper is Critical Today!

Note: This is guest post written by Maxime Lesage, Ståle Monstad and Espen Lundberg Simonstad from Green Minerals that was originally posted on LinkedIn.

We believe that the points raised and references made are tremendous, and are fortunate to have permission to repost this article on our site. Enjoy!

Introduction

During the Arendal's Week debate panel, the need for copper and the criticality of the supply was addressed and questioned by the representative of a major financing institution, which stated that the only mineral coming from marine sources that might be critical was cobalt. The argument that we don't need the minerals from marine sources due to changes in battery chemistry, recycling, etc is often stated by opponents of seabed mining.

For Seafloor Massive Sulphides, copper is the primary mineral of economic significance. We believe it's essential to challenge the misconception that copper isn't critical for the future—in reality, it is critical today! The facts are not readily accessible or easy to contextualize, as much of the available information remains confined to specialists. Thus, we gathered here some key information from three recent sources [1], [2] and [3] that present the situation and its implications:

Copper demand and supply crunch in the future (already today?)

There's no doubt that society's electrification is, and will continue to be, a major driver of copper demand. In [1], Cathles and Simon, two internationally recognised Economic Geologists, present a concerning projection of future demand. Even under a business-as-usual scenario, meeting this demand may be barely achievable, as illustrated by the following figure and accompanying table.

Global copper production, with projections

Even under a business-as-usual scenario, meeting this demand may be barely achievable.

New mine requirements to meet copper demand in various scenarios

Even in the baseline scenario more than one significant mine needs to be online each year until 2050.

In summary, maintaining a business-as-usual approach would require the annual addition of a new mine, each with production comparable to that of today's top 10 producers. The Net-Zero target would require a 6-fold increase of this already difficult target.

Why an already difficult target?

Let's look at the exploration side i.e. do we have the resource basis to open a large copper mine every year for the next 20 years+? In [2], we discover the reality of land copper exploration as shown in the next figure and related table.

Graph of copper exploration and new reserves

This figure shows clearly that despite a significant increase in the exploration budget, no major discovery has been made since 2008.

According to this table, the latest large discovery was made in 2014 (Kamoa-Kakula) whose copper potential is very far from the famous Chileans' crown jewels.

Once again: no copper reserves - no feed to the processing part of the value chain - and no copper available for fabrication and electrification.

Wait - can't we recycle? Won't there be a balance and a circular economy?

We let the public judge the following figure available in [3].

Even if more scrap contributes to the copper consumption through recycling it covers less than 50% of the demand in the foreseable future.

At the current pace, at the horizon of 2035, scrap will cover less than half of the projected copper consumption. Is that because we lack recycling capacity? What does one mean by recycling … the main issue is the availability of material to recycle or “scrap” - not the capacity to treat the scrap.

As we observe today, the processing capacity is more than sufficient. The figure below shows that treatment charges for copper concentrate (the mine product) are currently low and will keep on this trend because smelters are struggling to maintain their operations with the available concentrate.

Graph of historical treatment charges for copper concentrate

Treatment charges for copper concentrate (the mine product) are currently low and will keep on this trend because smelters are struggling to maintain their operations with the available concentrate.

Conclusion

We already face a significant shortfall in copper mining today, and given recent exploration and discoveries on land, it's hard to believe this situation will improve in the future.

Is copper critical today and tomorrow? Yes. Both the U.S. Department of Energy [4] and EU [5] included copper on their list of critical raw materials in 2023

Can we disregard new sources of copper? No.

Can marine minerals be part of the solution? Yes, if future exploration confirms the current knowledge and predictions.