2024-03-11 05:00:36
Her name is Khoemacau. Coveted by all, this Botswanan mine, considered one of the largest copper reserves in Africa, ended up falling, at the end of 2023, into the hands of China. Based in Australia, but owned by China Minmetals, the powerful Chinese state group MMG won the stake for 1.88 billion dollars (1.73 billion euros). A few months earlier, it was the Anglo-Australian giant BHP which had taken over its competitor OZ Minerals, well endowed with copper, for $6.38 billion. Et the American Newmont which, for its part, had paid 19 billion to buy Newcrest.
At the heart of the competition for minerals, copper is sparking a real buying frenzy. Less publicized than lithium or rare earths, the red metal is nonetheless as essential, if not more, to the energy transition. “Copper is the great invisible substrate that supports the modern world as we know it. Without it, we are literally left in the dark”says British author Ed Conway in his book Material World. A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future (“The Material World: A History of the Materials of Our Past and Future”, WH Allen, 2023, untranslated): “If steel provides the skeleton of our world and concrete its flesh, then copper is the nervous system of civilization, the circuits and cables that we never see but without which we could not function. »
Present in construction, red gold is found both in electricity networks and so-called “low carbon” consumer goods. Electric vehicles and their batteries alone should absorb a third of future needs, with each car requiring no less than 80 kilos to 100 kilos of copper when a traditional vehicle requires around twenty. In solar energy, needs will be multiplied approximately five times compared to a gas-fired thermal power plant. Without forgetting offshore wind turbines, which, to be connected to the shore, require significantly more cables. “It’s a mineral that we follow closelyconfirms Christophe Poinssot, deputy general director of the Geological and Mining Research Bureau (BRGM). As soon as there is electricity, there is copper, and as we deploy it almost everywhere to decarbonize the planet, we must expect tensions. »
Explosion in demand
In this context, the International Energy Agency (IEA) anticipates a 40% explosion in global demand by 2040. Will we be able to answer them? “Among all critical materials, it is clear that copper is becoming one of the most worrying in terms of supply and demand, if we refer to the curves which intersect over the two-year horizon”warns former industry boss Philippe Varin, author, in 2021, of a report on securing the supply of mineral materials. In the short term, there seems to be unanimity on the fact that“there will be no global shortage but rather temporary imbalances in time and space”, as recalled by Guillaume Pitron, associate researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS). In the longer term, however, the latter specifies that “concerns remain to the extent that insufficient investment could generate shortages within around fifteen years.”
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