Page 221 - RusRPTAug24

9.1.11 Metallurgy & mining sector news
BRICS countries after the accession of new members to the association provide for 72% of global reserves of rare-earth metals, head of the Russian Federal Subsoil Resources Management Agency (Rosnedra) Evgeny Petrov said in an op-ed posted on the TASS website.
Four decades ago, a rare earth processing plant on France's Atlantic coast was one of the largest in the world, churning out materials used to make colour televisions, arc lights and camera lenses, Reuters reports. Its current owner Solvay (SOLB.BR), opens new tab is racing to return the plant at La Rochelle to its former glory after years of diminished output as Europe seeks to boost production of the minerals fuelling the green energy transition. The factory's 76-year history is a microcosm of the challenges Europe and the United States face as they seek to reverse massive migration of rare earth processing to China that took place around 25 years ago. China became dominant in rare earths, a group of 17 minerals, by producing them at lower prices than the West, helped by government support, and often ignoring environmental concerns in a sector that can create toxic waste.
Russia's supply of economically viable reserves of some types of strategic and important minerals currently does not exceed 25 years, according to the Strategy for the Development of the Mineral Resource Base until 2050, approved by the Russian Government.
The strategy noted that the share of hard-to-recover reserves in the production of hydrocarbons, the development of which using existing technologies is unprofitable due to geological and technological factors, is growing. At the same time, the quality of solid mineral ores is gradually deteriorating, and the mining and technical conditions of mined deposits are becoming more complex. In addition, new deposits are being discovered in complex geological and geographical conditions.
According to the strategy, all significant mineral resources are divided into three groups. The first group includes raw materials whose reserves will satisfy the needs of the Russian economy until 2035 under any scenario of its development. This group includes natural gas, helium, coal, copper, nickel, cobalt, platinum group metals, iron ores, apatite ores, potassium salts, tin, bromine, and certain types of rare metals.
At the same time, the strategy emphasized that there are regional deficits for a number of minerals in this group, which are associated with an imbalance in the location of producers and consumers of mineral raw materials, as well as the gradual depletion of the raw material base in the historical mining areas.
The second group includes minerals with current production levels that are not
221 RUSSIA Country Report August 2024 www.intellinews.com