The world's by-product and critical metal resources part I: Uncertainties, current reporting practices, implications and grounds for optimism

摘要

Many of the metals extracted as by-products and rated as 'critical' are vital to important modern technologies but are seldom reported as extractable commodities by the mining industry. This creates numerous uncertainties and challenges in estimating the global resources of these metals; here we outline the current approaches (or lack thereof) used in resource reporting and identify and discuss the uncertainties surrounding critical co- and by-product reporting in detail. We present a review of ore reserve and mineral resource reporting in the mining industry, including the identification of various methods by which resource accounts have been constructed, a discussion of examples and differences between countries, states and organisations that conduct these assessments, and a discussion of the various ways in which these resource data have been interpreted. This is followed by a series of case studies that document and discuss the reporting of selected critical metals that suggest that the lack of reporting is dominantly as a result of the perceived or actual low monetary value of by-products at the mine site rather than as a result of any lack of these metals, indicating that different types of uncertainties can arise in estimating the global resources of these critical commodities.