ALBERT

Beschreibung: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Valuation of mineral resources is an exclusive activity of paramount importance that has its influence in managing the economics of the minerals produced in the country. Unlike determining the values of other product entities, valuation of minerals has its uniqueness in terms of methodologies and approaches that are adopted. There are many variables that are, directly or indirectly, associated with the valuation process. Historically, attempts were made to include valuation of mineral resources into national accounts. There are three different approaches to valuation of mineral resources. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to describe the classification of valuation models, different methods of mineral valuation, and preferred methodology adopted for the Indian mineral resources.〈/p〉

Beschreibung: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Mine planning of land-based mineral deposits follows well-established methods. The deep sea is currently under exploration, but mine planning approaches are still lacking. A spatial planning tool to assess the techno-economic requirements and implications of manganese nodule mining on deep-sea deposits is proposed in this paper. The comprehensive approach has been validated using research findings of the Blue Mining project, which received funding from the European Commission. A part of the German exploration area E1, located in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, Pacific Ocean, serves as a case study area. The approach contributes to a responsible utilization of mineral resources in the deep sea, considering geological, economic and financial as well as technical and operational aspects. The approach may also be applicable for an early-stage assessment of other projects related to spatially distributed mineral resources, e.g., marine phosphate nodules. Furthermore, it could also be helpful for the investigation of the environmental impacts of seafloor manganese nodule mining.〈/p〉

Beschreibung: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉To sustain the essential civilian economy and provide for the national defense during a national emergency scenario, the United States Department of Defense (U.S. DoD) maintains a stockpile of strategic and critical materials that are key to the functionality of the national industrial base. The National Defense Stock Piling Act (50 U.S. Code 98) mandates the existence of the National Defense Stockpile, as well as a biennial requirements report provided to the U.S. Congress by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), which guides the selection of the types and quantities of materials in the National Defense Stockpile (NDS). Estimates of potential material shortfalls, or the differences between material demands and supplies, under the assumptions and prescriptions of a “Base Case” national emergency planning scenario are a primary component of the report. The National Defense Stock Piling Act also mandates that a variety of parametric sensitivity studies of the Base Case be included in the NDS report. In compliance with this aspect of the law, the baseline macroeconomic forecast that drives Base Case material demand estimates is systematically perturbed and then used to calculate adjusted material shortfalls, characterizing the sensitivity of material shortfall estimates to macroeconomic forecast uncertainty. Ultimately, this process leads to a better understanding of the impact of economic forecasting errors, which are a proxy for forecast uncertainty, on the material shortfall estimates contained in the NDS requirements report. The mathematical characterization of shortfall estimate uncertainties potentially motivates more conservative stockpiling policies, such as worst-case planning practices designed to hedge against maximum downside risks. While many approaches to the perturbation analysis are reasonable, a specific method for examining uncertainty was consistently implemented in past NDS reports and reused for the 〈em〉2015 NDS Requirements Report〈/em〉. This paper quantifies the sensitivity of the NDS recommendations to macroeconomic forecasting errors and describes the methods used to conduct the sensitivity analysis. These methods are compared and contrasted to showcase the current techniques employed by the DoD to quantify its exposure to critical material risk.〈/p〉

Beschreibung: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉The landscape of the steel industry has changed significantly since the start of the twenty-first century. The countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have played an active role in the global steel industry. However, in the past decade, non-OECD countries have also caught up with trends. Non-OECD countries have developed from peripheral players to major centres of global steel production and trade, and they should continue to play a crucial role in the global steel market as a result of steady capacity additions. In addition to changes in the composition of the global steel market, there has been a gradual change in the structure of production technologies in the global steel industry. With the increasing importance of the electric arc furnace (EAF) route, does the blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace (BF/BOF) route still play an important role for non-OECD countries to catch-up with OECD countries? This study provides an in-depth analysis of non-OECD countries’ steel production and trade, and the results indicate that the balance of steelmaking technologies is associated with steel trade structure in non-OECD countries. The BF/BOF route is more likely to be significant for non-OECD countries to become net exporters of steel and diversify and/or to upgrade exports of steel products.〈/p〉

Beschreibung: 〈p〉The original version of this article was revised.〈/p〉

Beschreibung: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉In mineral economics, there is quite broad consensus that market fundamentals (physical supply and demand) explain commodity price fluctuations, particularly in the medium and long term. However, following the recent price boom, some dissent has arisen about the role played by non-fundamentals such as liquidity or money supply in key countries and regions, the financialization of commodities and, particularly, financial speculation. This paper develops an empirical model for the copper market, consisting in a vector autoregression (VAR) with 16 variables, including both fundamentals and non-fundamentals. Since the variables’ impact probably changes over time, the 20 years studied are divided into three periods (1995–2003, 2003–2008, and 2008–2015) separated by two structural breaks related to the Chinese boom and the financial crisis/Great Moderation. The results show that, although the fundamentals are relevant in all the periods analyzed, liquidity and other macroeconomic variables are also necessary in order to understand the level of copper prices and their fluctuations. In the case of financial speculation, the results indicate that its impact was significant only in 2003–2008 and, even then, was smaller than that of the fundamentals and macroeconomic variables, explaining around 9% of the price increase in this period. The results support the conclusion that, for the purposes of modeling and forecasting, current models based only on the fundamentals cannot fully explain price dynamics which are shown to be, in general, more complex than has been assumed by mainstream mineral economics.〈/p〉

Beschreibung: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Minerals are natural resources requiring accurate investigation and planning of extraction prior the actual mining stage. National and regional mineral resource inventories would benefit from adding more detail beyond tonnage, grade and location, when evaluating both current and potential future mineral wealth. In this paper, we consider the effect of information, time and project cycle on the mineral resource inventories for Finland. The research is forward-looking, and thus, we include the identified (but not mined) portions of discovered mineral resources and also the estimated undiscovered mineral resources (terminology based on the United States Geological Survey mineral resource classification). In addition, we consider how other types of land use limit mineral exploration. The studied metals were Cu, Ni, Zn, Cr, Fe, Au, Ag, Pt and Pd. The identified mineral resources of all of these metals increased from 2008 to 2015, driven by exploration and development at already known mineral deposits and mine sites. The results show that continuation of mine production is relatively well supported by currently profitable resources (i.e. ore reserves) in active mines and via development projects in the pipeline. In addition, a significant amounts of resources are still inferred to be discoverable for Pt, Pd, Cr, Au and Cu. A quarter of the mineral potential areas are reserved for land uses that restrict but not necessarily prevent mineral exploration. A share of identified resources occur in deposits that are not feasible for mining or interesting enough for exploration and development today. Our study demonstrates that identified resources become usable within different time periods. Knowledge of mineral resources and their usability is constantly changing, and even though mineral deposits are non-renewable, known mineral resources can be increased by exploration and mine planning processes.〈/p〉

Beschreibung: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉Import tariffs and export taxes that are imposed on products far upstream in global supply chains increase trade costs strongly since they are applied on products that will most likely be traded many times before they are sold for final consumption. This paper examines the export and import restrictions in place on minerals and metals. This paper provides a backdrop to the recent trade restrictions on minerals and metals. This issue has had much resonance lately since the United States imposed import tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium from some major producing countries. The use of export restrictions by producers of minerals and metals is increasing. Moreover, once export restricting measures are in place, they are rarely lifted. Export taxes on minerals and metals can be high, and some are prohibitively high. High export taxes negatively affect exports by countries that impose them. Import policies are very different to those that apply to exports: in major markets for minerals and metals, import tariffs have been substantially lower on average compared with the export taxes imputed by producing countries. Eight successive rounds of multi-lateral trade negotiations have taken place since 1947, resulting in fairly low import tariffs with many countries having bound their tariffs, i.e. pledged not to raise them above an agreed maximum, at successively lower levels. Export taxes are not subjected to multi-lateral oversight. Trade restrictions are used particularly frequently on metallic waste and scrap, which is generated either as a by-product of the mining and refining process or from recycled goods. Since recovered materials can re-enter the production cycle as inputs, trade restrictions pose a particular challenge to the aim of decoupling industrial production from resource use, which is deemed necessary to achieve compliance with the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).〈/p〉

Beschreibung: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉In the past 50 years, the US copper mining industry has experienced remarkable changes. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the US copper mining industry suffered a major recession. However, a few companies survived by implementing severe cost-cutting measures through innovation and technological changes. These efforts, in turn, helped quintuple labor productivity in the three decades following. Then from 2003 to 2012, labor productivity declined sharply to the levels equal to those of the early 1980s. This decline, following years of rising productivity, has led to questioning the effects of innovation and technological change on mining labor productivity. It has been argued that new technology will no longer be able to offset the adverse effects of depletion thus resulting in higher prices in the future. This study investigates the determinants of copper mining labor productivity empirically, and the extent to which they may vary cyclically for longer time spans (1965 to 2015) from the US perspective. The statistical model examines the level of labor productivity as a function of copper price, recoverable copper content of ore (percentage yield), production share of leaching, mine production index, and time trend. Overall, the results support the conclusion that falling productivity is mostly cyclical.〈/p〉

Beschreibung: 〈h3〉Abstract〈/h3〉 〈p〉There can be an inclination amongst some governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to view the resource sector with some cynicism. Junior mining companies sometimes engage with local communities (or not), leave without a trace (or perhaps with tracks, trails and trenches) and offer only a brief hope for betterment (or long-standing court battles over environmental or community issues) causing strong emotive reactions. None of the major miners have managed to avoid controversy in their own corporate histories either; of course, none ever could. The art of crafting reform to mineral regulation throughout the world has become a balancing act for the international resource lawyer. The mining company requires certainty when investing in exploration, development or expansion projects in a foreign country to offset the substantial uncertainty inherent in the exploration and mining processes themselves. One needs clear rules which are consistently applied that assure the developer that it may explore, develop and produce any discovery without interference of government or any other person and can measure with some accuracy the expected investment and the anticipated reward. This paper examines several mining codes in the Middle East and offers a critical assessment of their relative opportunity and risk to the developer. It examines each risk in comparative detail, including in comparison to a set of principles found in an exemplary mining code adopted by Madagascar in 2005. The principles of a model mining code (MMC) have been determined after examining more than 50 mining codes from around the world and benefit from the work of MineHutte and the Fraser Institute, which offer ratings for mining regulatory regimes based on different criteria.〈/p〉