The world’s dependency on cobalt mines in Congo and cobalt refineries in China is seen as serious security issues with potentially dangerous implications for the energy transition. However, Chinese refineries have a similar supply security issue as most of its cobalt concentrates are imported. Most supply security studies take a country perspective on market concentration and supply risks. However, control of the mines and refineries lies with the producing companies, not the governments of the countries where they are located. This paper analyses the corporate structure of the cobalt industry at the mine and the refinery stages over a longer time period to establish changes in the level of corporate concentration and to put the situation in 2018 in perspective. The level of corporate concentration at the mine stage is low and does not raise concerns for market failures or a lack of competitiveness. Corporate concentration of refined cobalt depends on the Chinese government’s influence over Chinese production: if the state control over individual refineries is assumed to be strong, the corporate concentration is high. Mine stage supply security could be strengthened by improving the general political stability in the DRC to make the country more attractive for investors other than the present ones. Increased local beneficiation would strongly benefit Congo and reduce China’s influence. This is a long and complicated process and its success is not at all certain. At the refinery stage, the solution is much easier: reliability of supply could be improved by constructing refineries in countries outside China.

It is a well-known fact that mine production has shifted from the industrialised countries of Europe, North America and Japan to emerging economies in Latin America, Africa and Asia and to Australia since the mid-20th century. The lack of self-sufficiency or high import dependence, in particular of the so-called critical metals, has become an issue of great political concern in these industrialised countries over the past 15 years. This study of six metals, cobalt, copper, iron ore, lithium, manganese and rare earths, contrasts this picture of geographical location of production with an analysis of where the control over mine production around the world is based, which we call the locus of control. Production might have moved out of the industrialised countries but control over production by companies based in the industrialised countries remains and has even increased between 1985 and 2018. We measure control as share of the total value of the production of the six metals. European transnational mining companies have increased their control from 14 to 18% while mining companies based in North America have lost control, a decline from 13 to 8%. When Australian companies, that have more than tripled their control in the same period, are added, control by the industrialised countries has increased to 44% of these six metals. Companies based in Latin America, Africa and Asia excluding China, taken together have maintained their control level, roughly a third of the total value of the six metals. Inside this group of countries African share has dwindled from 12 to 3% while Asian companies have more than doubled their share from 5 to 12%. Control by mining companies based in the republics of the former Soviet Union have been reduced from 25 to 7% while in the same period Chinese companies’ control has doubled from 6 to 12% of the total value of these six metals. Countries in Asia (excluding China) together with Latin American and African countries produce 51% of these six metals measured by the value at the mine stage. However, companies based in these countries control not more than 33% of the production.

Global resource extraction raises concerns about environmental pressures and the security of mineral supply. Strategies to address these concerns depend on robust information on natural resource endowments, and on suitable methods to monitor and model their changes over time. However, current mineral resources and reserves reporting and accounting workflows are poorly suited for addressing mineral depletion or answering questions about the long-term sustainable supply. Our integrative review finds that the lack of a robust theoretical concept and framework for mass-balance (MB)-consistent geological stock accounting hinders systematic industry-government data integration, resource governance, and strategy development. We evaluate the existing literature on geological stock accounting, identify shortcomings of current monitoring of mine production, and outline a conceptual framework for MB-consistent system integration based on material flow analysis (MFA). Our synthesis shows that recent developments in Earth observation, geoinformation management, and sustainability reporting act as catalysts that make MB-consistent geological stock accounting increasingly feasible. We propose first steps for its implementation and anticipate that our perspective as “resource realists” will facilitate the integration of geological and anthropogenic material systems, help secure future mineral supply, and support the global sustainability transition.

Existing research on the security of the supply of critical materials for clean energy generally aggregates information at the country level, a practice that obscures the extensive role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the production of critical materials. FDI refers to an ownership stake in a company or project by an overseas investor. Here we establish a database for global mining of lithium, cobalt, nickel and platinum at company level, covering 240 countries and regions. We show that 47% of lithium, 71% of cobalt, 41% of nickel and 34% of platinum mined in 2019 were under FDI. We then explore how FDI may affect supply risks by proposing a supply risk index that allocates production of the critical materials to the country of origin of investors instead of the country where production is located. We present upper and lower bounds of the supply risk index that reflect scenarios where either all investors or only state investors prioritize the home-country demand, respectively. This study presents an approach for assessing the national supply risks of critical materials, considering the geographical allocation of FDI.

The attractiveness of mineral investments across countries and regions worldwide can be judged through various measures, each with its strengths and weaknesses. The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize the Fraser Institute’s ranking of mining jurisdictions, which builds on eliciting the perceptions of industry representatives around the world through an annual survey. The analysis takes stock in the growing scholarship on country performance indicators and concludes that due to the low response rate and the lack of clear definitions of some of the underlying concepts (e.g., political stability), there are reasons to question both the reliability and the validity of this survey. There could also exist incentives among exploration companies to “game” the rankings. For these reasons, the ranking outcomes do not constitute a meaningful scorecard that countries can employ to improve their mining-related policies. However, despite these deficiencies, the Fraser Institute’s survey often enjoys relatively uncritical media attention. It even sets in motion a political “rankings game” in which the mining companies, governments, and other organized groups choose to participate. There is an urgent need for a more reliable and unbiased survey approach, including the consideration of alternative—complementing—measures for assessing investment attractiveness in the mining industry.

The green energy transition has been called a transition from a fossil fuel dependency to a metal and mineral dependency. Concerns about the security of future supplies are raised mainly in the EU and the USA with the Critical Raw Materials Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. The perspectives of these policies are centred on the demands created in the industrialised countries. The need for metals to lift billions of poor people out of poverty and to cater for the population growth is often, if not always, left out of the equation. While demand undoubtedly is increasing, the opposition to new mines and new renewable energy supply is strong and perhaps even increasing. It is necessary to find new ways to create a recognition that mining plays a key role for the green transition.

À propos de la transition écologique, la transition verte, on parle du passage d’une dépendance aux énergies fossiles à une dépendance aux métaux et aux minéraux. Les inquiétudes relatives à la sécurité des approvisionnements futurs sont explicites dans l’Union européenne et aux États Unis, à travers le Critical Raw Materials Act et l’Inflation Reduction Act. Le point de vue de ces politiques est entièrement centré sur la demande exprimée par les nations industrielles. Le besoin de métaux pour sortir des milliards de gens de la pauvreté et pour assurer la croissance encore à venir de la population est souvent, sinon toujours ignoré. Alors que la demande est clairement croissante, l’opposition à l’ouverture de nouvelles mines et de nouvelles ressources en énergies renouvelables est forte, voire elle aussi en croissance. Il est nécessaire de trouver de nouvelles façons de rendre intelligibles à un grand nombre que l’exploitation minière joue un rôle central dans la transition verte.

This article surveys the mining permitting process and discusses the process to obtain permits for the exploration and mining of metals in five industrialised countries: Sweden, Finland, Poland, Western Australia (Australia) and Ontario (Canada). The purpose is to provide an overview of the permitting process when the demand for metals may grow at a faster pace than ever before. The countries have been chosen for their well-developed mining industries while still representing different historical and legal backgrounds and traditions. Focus lies on three aspects of the permitting process: Mining policy, legislation and permits; Environmental legislation and permits and; Stakeholder influence/participation including appeals. We describe the present situation in all countries in detail. The mining policy and legislation in the countries studied are converging and the mining laws are becoming increasingly similar. Legislation is being revised at shorter intervals, and minor additions and amendments can be made in between completely new legislation. In all the five countries emphasis is placed on ensuring that the permitting process is transparent and open from the first exploration steps to the closure of a depleted mine. Governments are developing new policies, legislation, regulations and permitting processes to ensure that the growing demand can be met while at the same time the increasing demands by various stakeholders on land use, environmental and social developments can increasingly be included in the permitting process.