The following is an extract of an article appearing in The...

The following is an extract of an article appearing in The Economist - Mar 11th 2017..........

In the short term the mining industry remains gun-shy about new investments. As Glencore’s Mr Glasenberg notes, it has been fooled before by estimates that demand for copper will double—the latest such misjudgment came as recently as 2008.

The very biggest firms, BHP and Rio, have an additional reason to hesitate before splurging on battery materials. Their cash cows are iron ore and coking coal, the raw materials of steel, which are used more heavily in petrol and diesel engines than in EVs. BHP also produces oil, demand for which could one day be affected by battery-powered vehicles. Anglo American has a large platinum and palladium business, feeding demand for diesel and petrol catalytic converters.

All the firms insist that such diverse mineral exposures in fact provide them with a “hedge” whichever way the vehicle fleet develops (though they play up the copper in their portfolio as possibly the best bet of all). Rio is unique among them in also having a lithium-borate project, in Serbia, which it is developing as an option on a batteries boom.

http://www.economist.com/news/busin...d-create-huge-demand-copper-and-cobalt-mining