Australia is on the front line to find more copper to supercharge the world’s green economy, but the search for viable deposits won’t be easy. And won’t happen without more support.
The S&P report I highlighted in my last blog raised the alarm on a looming world shortage of copper that could “short circuit” global net zero strategies.
The need to find long term accessible copper deposits both globally and here in Australia is now urgent.
As the world’s 6th largest producer of copper, but with the 2nd largest copper reserves in the world, Australia is in a great place.
In fact global management consultancy, Partners in Performance, just said that Australia has the potential to become “a leading global copper producer vital to supporting a renewable energy future.”
But the company also warned that our governments need to do more to “approve copper mining operations now to avoid having to go to the open market.”
The NSW Government are already on board it seems, recently establishing the $130M Critical Minerals and High-Tech Metals Activation Fund. It’s designed to “support the industry across various project stages, from commercialising new technologies studies to accelerate project development, to support for critical and strategic infrastructure that will unlock project blockages, get them moving and attract new investment.”
That sounds impressive and I hope both the national and other state & territory governments are—or will—follow suit.
Of course there is already a hell of a lot of exploration going on around the country with many of our majors and minors reporting encouraging results. But to get us over the line by 2050 we need to turn them into productive mines as quickly as we can.
Cheers, John Fennell