BHP’S ‘SHARK TANK’ TO ACCELERATE EXPLORATIONMining giant BHP has...

BHP’S ‘SHARK TANK’ TO ACCELERATE EXPLORATIONMining giant BHP has adopted a “Shark Tank”-style investment model as part of a global search for the minerals needed to drive the renewable economy.
BHP yesterday in Brisbane unveiled seven junior mining companies based as far afield as Botswana, Finland and Mongolia that had taken part in its multimillion dollar Xplor program, designed to accelerate exploration for copper, nickel and other critical minerals.BHP Xplor vice-president Sonia Scarselli said the program offered coaching services, capital and other support to the participant companies as they developed their business ideas.“We have taken the accelerator concept developed by the tech and pharmaceutical sectors and adopted it to exploration,” said Ms Scarselli.“This has helped these companies thrive and develop their exploration operations. What would have taken perhaps four to six years down can be cut down to one year.”BHP said it received more than 200 applications from around the world to take part in the program. Each company received a cash payment of up to $US500,000 from BHP, together with access to a network of internal and external experts to help guide development across technical, business and operational aspects of the company. BHP said it could ultimately take an equity stake in the firms.The resources sector will need an additional $US100bn per year in capital investments to meet demand.BHP chief technical officer Laura Tyler said that “without big ideas” that often came from small, technology-focused start-ups it would be difficult to find the future Escondidas and Olympic Dams. Located 560km north of Adelaide, BHP’s Olympic Dam is one of the largest copper deposits in the world.“Olympic Dam is undercover. It’s hundreds of metres undercover. You wouldn’t know you were standing on top of an ore body, yet we found it,” said Ms Tyler.“How do we find more of those deposits? And we don’t just need big, huge Escondidas and Olympic Dams. We need the full scale of different types of deposits. If we’re going to meet the supply demand, then we need to be doing that effectively.”She added that meant technology to allow BHP to exploit lower grade deposits of minerals. “So we have been chasing 2 per cent grade copper but how do we go after 0.5 per cent for example and turn that into a really cost-effective operation?” she said.Ms Scarselli said that Xplor complemented the company’s traditional exploration model to establish a larger portfolio to boost the chance of developing new resources.It is believed to be the first time an accelerator program has been designed for the resource sector. BHP said there has been a downward trend in the rate and size of copper and other minerals discoveries over the past two decades and the industry was not developing enough new high-quality discoveries to support a long-term pipeline.

Impact Minerals managing Martin Jones, whose ASX-listed battery minerals firm is one of the Xplor cohort, said support from BHP had provided the time and money to accelerate exploration. “It has allowed us to do in six months what would have normally taken us six years,” said Dr Jones, who added global warming meant exploration of renewable economy minerals needed to be fast-tracked.BHP said there could be about 320 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030 that would require an additional 18 million tonnes of copper and 10 million tonnes of nickel.BHP’s Escondida mine in Chile, one of the world’s biggest, produces about one million tonnes of copper each year. Tutume Metals managing director Ross McGowan said participation in the program was critical given the urgency to make new discoveries in difficult locations.