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Strategic minerals and the aerospace and defence industries

30th April 2015

By: Keith Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The term ‘strategic minerals’ is one that is much used but one that, in the words of Brazilian minerals lawyer Raquel Quaresma de Lima, “does not have a steady definition”, while the Science and Technology Committee of the UK House of Commons has observed that there is “no single definition of the term ‘strategic’.”

Rather, De Lima points out: “[It is] a subjective feature being continuously subject to changes in view of different factors throughout time. It varies from product to product, from country to country and also depends on the development of new technologies, the uses of the mineral products and the availability of adequate and cost-effective substitutes. Notwithstanding, there are two characteristics which are most commonly used to define what is a strategic mineral. They are the vulnerability (risk of supply) and the criticality (the importance of the mineral for strategic industries in a country) . . .” The Science and Technology Committee decided that it “had to take a broad definition and we took strategically important metals . . . to be those that may be of importance to any user within the UK”.*

This combination of vulnerability of supply and criticality of the mineral is one that can play out in a number of fascinating ways. Thus, uranium – that’s clearly, obviously strategic, because of its use in nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Except, fascinatingly, neither the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee nor the US Department of Defence ‘Strategic and Critical Materials 2013 Report on Stockpile Requirements’** lists uranium as a strategic or critical metal or material! The reason is probably that staunch US and UK allies Canada and Australia are the world’s second- and third-biggest uranium producers, while the US itself ranks eighth. (Canada accounts for 16% of global production and Australia for 11%.) Uranium is critically important, but, for Washington and London, there are no vulnerability (supply risk) concerns.

Further, there is a difference between a mineral or metal being strategic in defence terms – serving as a critical component in platforms (aircraft, ships, armoured vehicles), weapons, sensors (radars, optronics systems) and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems – and being strategic in economic terms – facilitating the supply of power to the economy, supplying mass consumer product industries, serving as key feedstocks for high technology, but clearly civilian, industries. The aerospace industry, of course, straddles the civilian and defence sectors, as do elements of the electronics industry, such as integrated circuits (microchips or chips). And there is a purely civil nuclear sector, with no connection to weapons. Further, the definitional waters are muddied somewhat because the aerospace, defence and electronics industries can be major elements of a country’s economy.

MILITANT METALS

Attempting an examination of all minerals and metals that are, in one way or the other, strategic is simply not possible in a single magazine article. Thus, this story will focus on minerals regarded as being strategic from the point of view of the aerospace, defence and electronics industries.

What are these minerals? The US ‘Strategic and Critical Minerals 2013 Report’ lists aluminium (used in aircraft, missiles, spacecraft, small warships) – and, consequently, also bauxite, antimony (ammunition), beryllium (electronics, information technology, nuclear), bismuth (ammunition, optics, including lenses), cadmium (batteries, radio communications, aircraft), cerium (semi- conductors, electron tubes – which include magnetrons, klystrons, cathode-ray tubes and photoelectric cells – and batteries), chromium (aircraft, missiles, spacecraft, aero engines and parts; also essential for the production of stainless steel), cobalt (aero engines and parts, semiconductors, electron tubes, search and detection and navigation instruments), columbium (aircraft, missiles, spacecraft, aero engines and parts), copper (munitions, including shaped charge liners – used in antitank missiles and rockets and in high-explosive antitank shells – brass shell casings), dysprosium (nuclear control rods, magnets, ceramics for electronics), erbium (communications systems, semiconductors and electron tubes).

Also on the list is europium, used in nuclear control rods and lasers; gadolinium, used in computer storage devices, semiconductors and electron tubes, magnetic and optical recording devices; galium (semiconductors and electron tubes); germanium (fibre optics, infrared optics, electronics); hafnium (electric light bulbs, semiconductors and electron tubes); holmium (electronic components, semiconductors and electron tubes); indium (semiconductors and electron tubes); iridium (electronic components, aero engines and parts); lanthanum (batteries); lead (batteries, ammunition, radio equipment); lithium (batteries and also used in an alloy with aluminium in aircraft manufacture); lutetium (communications, semiconductors and electron tubes); magnesium (radio communications equipment); manganese (batteries, aero engines and parts, aircraft, shipbuilding and repair, radio equipment); mercury (search, detection and navigation equipment); molybdenum (aircraft, missiles, spacecraft, aero engines and parts); neodymium (magnets, lasers, capacitors); nickel (aircraft, missiles, spacecraft); palladium (semiconductors and electron tubes, other electronic components); platinum (semiconductors and electron tubes); praseodymium (fibre optics); quartz crystal (electricity and signal testing and other electronic components); rhenium (jet engines, radio equipment); rhodium (aircraft, electrical machinery, nuclear reactors); ruthenium (semiconductors and electron tubes, wiring); samarium (neutron absorbers for nuclear reactors, capacitors, lasers, magnets); scandium (electric light bulbs and parts, semiconductors and electron tubes, other aircraft components); selenium (semiconductors and electron tubes); and silicon carbide (radio equipment).

The list further includes silver (search, detection and navigation systems, radio equipment), tantalum (electronic components, aero engines and parts), terbium (lasers, magnets), thulium (semiconductors and electron tubes, other electronic components, wiring devices), tin (electronic components), titanium (aircraft, missiles and spacecraft, aero engines and parts), tungsten (search, detection and navigation equipment, aircraft, radio equipment), vanadium (aircraft, shipbuilding and repair), ytterbium (semiconductors and electron tubes, communications systems, power wires and cables), yttrium (displays and lighting), zinc (shipbuilding and repair) and zirconium (missiles and spacecraft, aero engines and parts, turbine and turbine generator set units and nuclear fuel assemblies).

It should be noted that many of these minerals have important uses outside of the aerospace, defence and electronics industries. The list in the report also includes a number of products – for example, rubber and strontium – that are not directly connected with aerospace, defence and electronics, but are indirectly linked to these sectors.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee list is very similar, although it is composed only of metals. The British list does not distinguish those metals that are strategic specifically for the aerospace, defence and electronics industries. The British list also differs in that it adds gold and niobium and includes all the platinum-group metals and all the rare-earth elements and not just some of them.

France’s Committee for Strategic Metals, set up by the Ministry of Industry, likewise does not distinguish between metals that are strategic in defence or in economic terms. Again, its list overlaps with the other two, but is shorter: cobalt, gallium, germanium, indium, lithium, niobium, rare-earth elements, rhenium, selenium and tanatalum. (Note – again, uranium is not on the list; France obtains most of its supply from West African countries with which Paris maintains very close relations.)


MINING MATTERS


While all these metals and minerals may be essential for the defence and related industries, this does not necessarily mean that the defence sector is a good customer for the mining industry. There are a number of reasons for this. Mines, of course, are long-term projects, lasting 20, 30 and even more years. For example, in its ‘IV 2008: Fourth Sustainable Mining Report’***, the International Aluminium Institute reported that, in 2006, the average age of the world’s bauxite mines was 35 years, with an average future life expectancy of another 37 years. But defence budgets are very volatile, capable of dramatically moving up (or, more often) down, in response to sudden, unforeseen (and often unforeseeable) changes in regional and global politics and security environments.

Further, although the broad defence sector does take significant quantities of some of these metals – for example, aircraft-grade aluminium – in many cases, it uses only small quantities of these materials. It is not that big a market for miners. On top of that, there is the tremendous dynamism of aerospace, defence and electronics technology development, which can render some materials less important and others more important over quite short periods. In aerospace, for example, 30 years ago (1985) 95% of the structural weight of an Airbus A310-300 wide-body airliner was made up of metals, mainly aluminium and aluminium alloys, with 5% being composites. Today, in the company’s latest design, the wide-body A350 XWB, metals account for only 47% of the structural weight, with composites accounting for 53%. Many other examples can be given.

Fortunately, for miners, either there are much larger civilian markets for these metals and minerals – for example, the automotive sector for platinum and palladium, consumer electronics for beryllium – making their mining profitable and sustainable, or they are produced as by-products of other metals that have large civilian markets. For example, most of the world’s cobalt is produced as a by-product of copper mining (there are only a handful of dedicated cobalt mines in the world).

One set of strategic metals that have attracted considerable attention in recent years are the rare- earth elements. These are cerium, dysprosium, erbium, europium, gadolinium, holmium, lanthanum, lutetium, neodymium, praseodymium, promethium, samarium, terbium, thulium and ytterbium, as well as yttrium. (The Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry adds scandium to the category.) Some of these are listed individually in the US ‘Strategic and Critical Minerals 2013 Report’. They are not actually rare: they are, however, only rarely found in concentrations great enough to be economi- cally mined.

Attention was focused on them when, in 2010, China placed significant restrictions on the export of rare-earth metals. At that time, the country accounted for about 95% of global production of these elements, although the US Geological Survey estimates that it has only 50% of the global reserves. China is also the biggest consumer of rare-earth elements. The World Trade Organisation subsequently ruled against China’s restrictions and the country announced it would abide by the ruling. All the export quotas for rare earths have since been abolished.

However, China’s action resulted in both governments and companies seeking alternative sources for these metals. It is now Japanese government policy that the country will source more than 60% of its rare earths requirements from outside of China by 2018. This is being done by major Japanese corporations developing mining projects in cooperation with local entities in Australia, India and Kazakhstan. Apart from mining projects being restarted, expanded or developed from scratch in these countries, the Mountain Pass mine, in the US, has also been reopened. And rare earths projects are being examined or developed in Brazil, Canada, Finland, Greenland (part of Denmark), Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa (the world’s leading producer in the 1950s), Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey and Vietnam. But consuming companies are also reducing their use of rare earths and switching to alternative technologies.

However. “[m]ost strategic metal reserves are unlikely to run out over the coming decades”, notes the UK’s ‘Strategically Important Metals’ report. “In practice, improved technology, the use of alternative materials and the discovery of new reserves are likely to ensure that strategic metals are accessible.”

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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