Abstract

Critical and strategic minerals and metals (CSMs) have been a very hot topic in the mining industry for the last decade (before the term CSM even became popular) and have become an unavoidable topic at mining conventions. CSM hype was amplified when, about five years ago, several governments, like the United States, the European Union and Canada, each started publishing their lists of CSMs, based on their respective situation. Today, many minerals on these lists are considered critical because they are required for major societal changes like the energy transition, transportation electrification and the decarbonization of the economy in general. Many other minerals are considered strategic because they are essential and are not produced domestically and thus must be imported, often from countries with significantly different environmental, social and governance (ESG) values.

To meet the ever-increasing demand for CSMs, improve their ESG profile and reduce dependency on foreign sources, the consensus is that these minerals and metals should be produced locally, or at least in friendly jurisdictions. This CSM rush saw the creation of several projects for lithium, natural graphite or rare-earth elements being launched over the last decade in Canada. But the success stories for these projects seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Why?

There are certainly many reasons for that. Might one of these reasons simply be that these CSMs are significantly different from the base and precious metals typically mined and refined in Canada? On the producer side, the concentration and transformation processes, the latter being a major difference in itself, are often more complicated and hardly transposable from one project to the next. On the commercial side, the final applications and markets can be so much more diversified and demanding technically, and the number of customers significantly higher. These facts put together can make it quite challenging to understand for people who are not in the industry, and understanding an industry is usually a prerequisite for someone who wants to invest in it.

The objective of this presentation is to use the natural flake graphite industry as a backdrop, an example to provide an overview of the complexities of the CSM industry and the challenges that come with CSM projects. The presentation will cover CSMs, the natural flake graphite industry, the complexities of this industry viewed through the variety of processes and multitude of applications, and their technical requirements. Some of the challenges of CSM projects will also be briefly described: projects mostly by junior mining companies; high (unrealistic?) expectations on project financials; significant volumes, challenging technical specifications and long homologation times required by some applications such as lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles; and, of course, competition.