Mineral Resource Economics 1. Florian Fizaine
Maïté Legleuher and Dominique Guyonnet (Chapter 1) focus on in relation to the cobalt market. For example, extraction and refining are highly concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo and China, respectively. The assessment of its demand in Europe uses the so-called “material flow analysis” (MFA) approach, which traces these flows and takes into account the multiple forms and uses of cobalt and its recycling possibilities, all the way to the “urban mine”. This MFA of cobalt, coupled with a value chain analysis based on European data, makes it possible to question the strategies of European groups that, anxious to position themselves in high value-added segments, end up dependent on operators working upstream (extraction and refining).
Some mineral resources are financialized while others are not and this has important consequences on the transparency and price dynamics prevailing in these markets. With this in mind, Yves Jégourel (Chapter 2) describes the role of the financialization of ore and metals. More specifically, the author reviews the organization and mechanisms of futures and their alternatives. The author also discusses the effect of financialization on the dynamics of mineral prices and also on the transformation of the sectors using them.
Beyond the financial aspects, the supply of mining resources is also part of institutions – in the first place, state policy. As such, not all countries seem to follow the same rules. While many have established a doctrine for the management of energy resources, this is not the case for mineral resources. Didier Julienne (Chapter 3) attempts to deconstruct the myth that countries are genuinely opposed to each other in order to get their hands on metals. In reality, countries such as China, which has a real resources doctrine, are advancing their pawns to secure their future supplies without encountering any real resistance from industrialized countries. The author calls for the reconstruction of a genuine resource strategy in Western countries and for stopping the over-reaction to often truncated economic information.
To assess the amount of mineral resources available to our economies, we use indicators that we rarely question. This is what Michel Jébrak (Chapter 4) does do. In particular, he demonstrates that mineral endowment is a complex concept that can be measured using different parameters: the annual production of a specific mineral and its reserves and their ratio, which can vary in terms of upward or downward trends for different minerals. This endowment can be generalized by the notion of basic reserves, which attempts to assess the overall geological potential of a given metal. If mineral resources are unevenly distributed geographically, their exploitation moves from one country to another according to the movement of industrialization, as in the case of the main copper and tin mines. Ultimately, mineral endowment is a historical construct, dependent on geological data, mineral extraction and processing technologies, and on the economics of mining, which is a capital-intensive industry.
The second part of this book reports on the challenges that mineral resources face. They concern the multiple factors that can affect the supply of mineral resources.
In a chapter focusing on the struggle between technical progress and the geological depletion of metal deposits, Olivier Vidal (Chapter 5) shows how two antagonistic approaches (optimistic and pessimistic) can be pooled into a formal approach of dilution–energy and energy–price relationships. Using formal theoretical tools, as well as empirical calibration on past data, he questions the perpetuation of observable price declines for most metals. This downward trend in prices should be reversed by the end of the century if the rate of technical improvement remains the same and if we continue to exploit increasingly less concentrated deposits.
Measuring the environmental footprint of mineral resources is a challenge that Jacques Villeneuve and his co-authors at BRGM propose to take up (Chapter 6). Indeed, the environmental footprint of human activities goes beyond its sole measurement in terms of surface area used to take into account all the environmental impacts on the lifecycle of products. The aim here is to measure this footprint using an extended input–output table (IOT) that determines the consumption of mineral resources and their environmental impacts, induced by final demand with a fine level of disaggregation. These IOTs are then interconnected within a multi-regional model to assess the final impact, including imports, of national demand. In spite of limitations related to the difficulty of obtaining databases comparing data on a global scale, it can be seen that the environmental footprint of the demand for metals required for French final demand is mainly made abroad.
Since the use of mineral resources is part of an economic issue, Romain Debref (Chapter 7) is interested in aspects related to environmental efficiency (energy and material) often implemented in many technologies in order to save resources and energy. He gives an overview of the history of eco-efficiency through the various movements that support it and its limits in terms of the originality and purpose of the concept. In a second step, he details the many forms of rebound effects that still hinder eco-efficiency.
We tend to forget this, but most of our consumption of raw materials requires some countries to specialize in the extraction of these resources. Yet a significant number of these countries have poorer economic health than countries without resources. Audrey Aknin (Chapter 8) shows the main factors that contribute to this resource curse. Far from the simple paradox of abundance, the resource curse is rooted in a variety of channels such as Dutch disease, increased income-seeking behavior, organizational failure, institutional dysfunction, corruption and civil war. The chapter also provides an overview of the recurrent failure of the various tools supported by international organizations to contain these phenomena. The author concludes with a few examples of countries that have successfully avoided the resource curse and the options that are now favored.
The increase in the supply of mineral resources also faces social and legal issues. Thus, Victoire Girard and Agnès Zabsonré (Chapter 9) demonstrate that the exploitation of natural resources can make a major contribution to the process of economic growth and development and that a significant part of the populations of low-income countries depend on the exploitation of mineral resources through artisanal mining. The impact of this exploitation is a controversial issue, leading to a resource curse in some cases, or economic benefits in others. Industrial mining can certainly have some positive local economic impacts, depending on the quality of governance of local institutions and their ability to create economic benefits for related industries. However, artisanal mining appears to have a greater positive effect on the consumption, incomes and well-being of the local population. The long-term impacts on well-being, as well as on health through local pollution, are more uncertain and should be better documented by further research.
In Volume 2, Emmanuel Hache and his co-authors (Chapter 1) review the criticality approaches recently deployed to analyze the new risk caused by the surge in raw material needs for the energy transition. Their overview of the studies leads them to question the absence of a homogeneous theoretical framework and to underline the weaknesses of current indicators (the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) and the World Governance Index), particularly with regard to geopolitical aspects. While cartelization attempts in raw materials markets have all failed in the past (with the possible exception of OPEC), this fear is resurfacing today given the significant concentration of metal markets for oil. Researchers are showing what is really going on with lithium, cobalt, copper and rare earths. Finally, the authors discuss the values of different forms of public policy to manage commodity supply risk.
We will also see that more mineral resources uses also mean more extraction. However, the opening of new deposits according to their location does not go without posing legal problems. Stéphanie Reiche-de Vigan (Chapter 2)