The Race to Secure Africa's Critical Minerals

Bloomberg

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00:00Good afternoon, everybody. So what's driving the critical minerals rush? It's, I'll give you a clue,

00:11it's two words, and it is an artificial intelligence. It's the energy transition.

00:18So we track global investments in the energy transition every year. It's now 2.1 trillion

00:24per annum, which is a pretty amazing number, up 11% from the year before. And even more amazing

00:32is that 93% of the 2.1 trillion went into just four different areas. It went into renewable energy,

00:42storage, electrified transport, and the grid. So really, that's what's driving the uptick in

00:49minerals. And it's driven by these cost curves. So tremendous cost curves coming down. So

00:55batteries, battery packs came down 20% in one year, last year. Solar was down 60% since 2023. So huge

01:05reductions in costs. And that's the past, but what about the future? So when we look into the future,

01:12we do forecasts. The low transition is where emissions would be. If you just follow economics,

01:20because this clean technology is getting cheaper and cheaper, you'll see this economic transition

01:25scenario line. And pretty much all of that investment is going into clean power and electrification. So

01:33that's really where economics is going to take us. And in terms of the grid, we're going to see a doubling

01:39of investment. So from about a 300 billion run rate to about a 600 billion run rate, it's going to be

01:4629 million kilometers of new grid being built between now and mid-century. That's half as much again as all

01:54the grid we have now. It's pretty significant. And so you can see, if you just look at the top line of

02:00that chart, you'll see these are the technologies really driving demand, solar, wind, batteries, and

02:08passenger vehicles. And if we just look at passenger vehicles for a moment, this is our forecast of

02:14EV sales. And what you'll see is we're already, the dotted line is the global average. We're already

02:20at about 20% of sales being electric vehicles. And by 2030, that's going to be about 40% of sales are

02:30going to be electric vehicles. It's pretty amazing. It's actually double that in China. But even on a

02:34average basis, it's 40%. And what that drives is batteries. So this is how battery uptake is going

02:43to be. It's about a three or four fold increase in the next decade. If you look on the right, you can

02:49see the driver. So passenger vehicles is the biggest piece of that in sky blue. But it's also going to be

02:54relevant to commercial vehicles, buses, two and three wheelers, and also stationary storage. And

03:01what that does is drive this, which is the metals that make up those components. So again, it's about

03:08a two and a half fold increase between today and 2035. And you can see on the right hand side, these are

03:16all the metals and minerals that are going to be needed. So huge, huge growth rates in that. That's

03:21really what we mean by the rush. So metals and minerals are absolutely going to be key to the

03:27energy transition. This maps those key technologies that you're seeing scaling to all of the different

03:33demands that they place on metals. And there's three things I'd like to call out. One is obviously the

03:40demand growth. The left hand chart, again, is just where economics take you. So you're going to see,

03:46you know, over 100 million metric tons of transition metals being required just through economics alone.

03:53If people really want to aim for net zero again, you can see how much big an increase that is. So

03:59there's one is demand. Two is exploration. So the dark line is where minerals will be without the

04:10transition. You add the transition in, and you can see increased depletion. So you're going to need

04:15more and more exploration to replace that. And finally, what you're going to see is a lot more

04:22recycling. So again, in percentage terms, not going to rise. So you look, this is pretty flat. You're

04:29going to see this massive scaling in metals, but recycling is going to be a key component of that.

04:36So again, it's going to be grow alongside the metal demand. So the question really is, is how can Africa

04:44benefit from this? We've heard before sort of how well endowed it is from a metals and minerals

04:49perspective, but really, what are the policies that are needed to really make economic good out of

04:55this? How is investment going to be attracted? And importantly, how do we do this? How do we do

05:02this scaling without causing environmental issues? So I'm going to tee that up. And now you're going to

05:08have an amazing panel to talk about those issues and more. Thank you very much.

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