Dear Members
Here’s wishing all members everywhere a very happy spring!
We here in the U.S., and I believe, those of you in the UK seem to be some way off from benefitting fully from any warm weather and increasing daylight. It’s below freezing, again, this morning, with the possibility of yet more snow later this week. Hey ho, hey ho!
By the time you read this, it will, unfortunately, be too late. The cut-off date given by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DoI) was March 19. Interior was looking for comments by then on the recently published “draft list of minerals considered critical to the economic and national security of the United States.” (At the time of writing this on the morning of Sunday, March 18 at 1100 hrs, some 461 comments had been received.—The MMTA submitted comments via its membership of the CRM Alliance).
I can imagine that this will raise in surprise more than a few eyebrows. Mine certainly went up. For those who don’t know it, here’s the story (in brief). Back on December 20, 2017, in Presidential Executive Order 13817, President Donald Trump directed the Secretary of the Interior to publish a list of minerals deemed “critical to U.S. national security and the economy”. And, then, on February 16, in the remarkably short time period of less than two months, Interior published its list, compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and “prepared with the Bureau of Land Management’s cooperation”, of 35 minerals seen as critical to the U.S.
And here they are. (For those of you reading this letter online, I have included the hyperlink for each mineral provided by the USGS):
I suppose what we should be asking ourselves is: “Why did it take you this long?” It has been 10 years or so since the two seminal research works – Managing Materials for a Twenty-first Century Military (2008) and Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the U.S. Economy (2008) – were published. And there really has only been a deal of faffing about (including reports on rare earths from the likes of the U.S. GAO and the Congressional Research Service) on the U.S. government’s part between then and now.
Well, not quite now. Back on December 19, 2017 (the day before Trump’s Executive Order), the USGS published its Professional Paper 1802: Critical mineral resources of the United States—Economic and environmental geology and prospects for future supply. A somewhat weighty tome of 862 pages, the paper “presents resource and geologic information on the [following] 23 mineral commodities currently among those viewed as important to the national economy and national security of the United States.”
Of these 23, two do not make it to the final list above: fluorine and selenium. And of those listed above, the following were not singled out for mention (or had chapters written about them) in Professional Paper 1802: Aluminium (bauxite), arsenic, bismuth, cesium, chromium, fluorspar, helium, magnesium, potash, rubidium, scandium, strontium, tungsten and uranium.
I believe it is worth noting a few things from the request for comments from the DoI. First is how “critical mineral” is defined: “A “critical mineral” as defined by the Executive Order is a mineral identified to be (i) a non-fuel mineral or mineral material essential to the economic and national security of the United States, (ii) the supply chain of which is vulnerable to disruption, and (iii) that serves an essential function in the manufacturing of a product, the absence of which would have significant consequences for the U.S. economy or national security.”
Second is how the critical minerals were screened. The methodology for this was developed back in 2016 (and updated this year) by the National Science and Technology Council Sub-committee on Critical and Strategic Mineral Supply Chains (CSMSC). For the USGS’ methodology, it is, however, also worth reading its Open-File Report 2018-1021 entitled Draft critical mineral list—Summary of methodology and background information—U.S. Geological Survey technical input document in response to Secretarial Order No. 3359.
In addition, and very usefully, in the report there is a great table that provides not only the top producer country and top supplier country of each of the 35 minerals, but that also notes in which of the following sectors – Aerospace (nondefense), Defense, Energy, Telecommunications and electronics, Transportation (nonaerospace) and Other – use of each mineral is deemed critical. A further table describes for each mineral and industrial sector both important technologies and applications.
Finally it is worth noting, in the words of the DoI, the “[a]dditional tools and sources of information used”. These are listed as: “(i) U.S. net import reliance statistics as published annually in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries; (ii) USGS Professional Paper 1802 ‘‘Critical Mineral Resources of the United States’’; (iii) inputs from the Department of Defense; (iv) the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018; (v) Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration uranium statistics in the 2016 Uranium Marketing Annual Report; and (vi) the judgment of subject matter experts of the USGS and other U.S. Government agencies, including representatives of other DOI Bureaus and members of the CSMSC Subcommittee.”
The big question now is, once all the comments are in and have been “digested”, what on earth is the administration going to do with the resulting “final” list? Looking at what has been happening here recently, it’s all very well to tell the world that tariffs are going to be slapped on aluminium and steel because Mr Trump doesn’t want them flooding into the country. But what about minerals, deemed critical, that the country hasn’t got and does want? Especially if the main producer/supplier happens to be China. We shall see.
For the first time in a number of years, I’ve actually got the opportunity to attend the MMTA conference in Montreal. I’m looking forward to it greatly.
In the meantime, however, as always, I remain, with best wishes from New York
Tom Butcher
March 18th, 2018 ©2018 Tom Butcher
Tom Butcher is an Associate Director at Van Eck Associates Corporation (“VanEck”). The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views of Tom Butcher are not presented by or associated with VanEck or its affiliated entities.
U.S. Department of the Interior: Draft List of Critical Minerals, https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=DOI-2018-0001-0001
Federal Register: A Federal Strategy To Ensure Secure and Reliable Supplies of Critical Minerals, December 20, 2017, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/12/26/2017-27899/a-federal-strategy-to-ensure-secure-and-reliable-supplies-of-critical-minerals
The National Academies Press: Managing Materials for a Twenty-first Century Military, https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12028/managing-materials-for-a-twenty-first-century-military
The National Academies Press: Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the U.S. Economy, https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12034/minerals-critical-minerals-and-the-us-economy
U.S. Government Accountability Office: RARE EARTH MATERIALS: Developing a Comprehensive Approach Could Help DOD Better Manage National Security Risks in the Supply Chain, February 11, 2016, https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-161
Congressional Research Service: Rare Earth Elements in National Defense: Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress, December 23, 2013, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41744.pdf
U.S. Geological Survey: Professional Paper 1802: Critical mineral resources of the United States—Economic and environmental geology and prospects for future supply, December 19, 2017, https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/pp1802
Ibid.
U.S. Department of the Interior: Draft List of Critical Minerals, https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=DOI-2018-0001-0001
U.S. Geological Survey: Draft critical mineral list—Summary of methodology and background information—U.S. Geological Survey technical input document in response to Secretarial Order No. 3359, https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20181021
