 Ladies and gentlemen, to this session on critical raw materials. But before I reduce the speakers and the subject, let me just mention one incredible experience which I had this morning. I used the time very early in the morning to go to a place, 10 minutes from here, the Abrahamic family house. I was not familiar that this exists, but a friend of mine had told me about it. It's a church, a synagogue and a mosque, all on one compound. And it is a strong sign of tolerance that the United Arab Emirates send with this wonderful architecture, which is not just a museum, but where people pray, people sing, people have masses, services. It was deeply moving and especially in these times, I can only encourage you to use the time to go there and see it and one can only wish that this message that the Emirates send with this wonderful institution will be heard in all major Abrahamic religions. Well, we have a very important subject and that is critical raw materials. And last year, after the Russian invasion in Ukraine, we woke up and I say it as a German, also we and especially we woke up and immediately recognized how much dependent we were on, in this case, Russian gas. And at that time, at the last World Policy Conference, the 15th edition, we already had a panel on critical raw materials with a representative from the EU Commission. And we all stated, well, the dependency on critical raw materials, on some critical raw materials on China, for instance, are even higher than those dependencies that we had with Russian gas. And we urged the Commission and urged the policy makers do something to diversify, do something to start mining again in Europe, look for other places. And the question that we asked today and which is the lead question here for the panel is what has changed during last year? Was this strong demand heard by policy makers in Brussels and Washington and the Gulf elsewhere in the world not to rely on one or two countries alone but to diversify? That's the main question and I introduced the first speaker. I asked all speakers to be brief. We said 10 minutes so that we have time to discuss within the panel but also with you. The first speaker is Philippe Salman. Philippe is what you could call a walking encyclopedia on critical raw materials. Since 37 years, he publishes an annual report on the status of critical raw materials. So long before it became a political issue, a heated issue, he was an expert on these questions. And I think there's hardly anybody else, at least not in Europe, more about critical raw materials than Philippe, who was a professor at Paris Dauphin. And well, who is a great guy and we are proud to have you, the floor is yours, Philippe. Well, thanks very much. Besides, I would say, I don't think I'm a real expert on critical raw materials. Christophe Poinsault is probably for that far better than me. In fact, Cyclops were publishing a commodity yearbook. So we cover all kinds of commodities. Also, sometimes we might be wrong. Exactly one year ago, we were just in this place, or the hotel on the other side, and I told you that among the most bullish commodities we had in 22 were what I called the electric materials that were lithium, nickel, graphite, and some others. One year later, November 23, we have seen a complete reverse. Among all commodities, be it energy, agricultural, minerals and metals and the rest, the worst performance on world markets in 1923 has been for lithium. And lithium has lost around 70% of its value, coming from roughly $75,000 a ton to $25,000, more or less, still slightly more than it was in 1920. Nickel, which was completely foolish in 22, reaching at some time in the early time in the Asian hours, more than $100,000 per ton, nowadays is around $18,000. Even graphite, and we have much spoken about graphite those last two weeks because of the quota set up by the Chinese government, but before that the price of graphite had been declining this year by 30%. Same thing for cobalt, cobalt used to be somewhere between 50 and 80 cents per pound, now it's hardly between 17 and 18, and it's reached even a low of certain cents per pound some months ago. In fact, the only olive of all those metals which behaved, I would say, a bit more positively was copper. Also last year we were around $10,000 per ton, now we are hardly around $8,000. Let's be frank, be it electric metals, criticals, strategic or just common non-fruits metals, all metals markets have been declining in this recent year. Why such a situation? Of course we have seen in many derivatives markets a kind of end of a speculative exuberance, and it must be stressed what the prices I gave you for lithium, for cobalt are on some very opaque markets. And so sometime you really have exuberant prices without links to reality. Also it must be stressed that in many cases anticipated demands, especially coming from the battery industry hasn't yet materialized because as you know an industrial process is something which is quite long to put in place. In fact, when I look at forecasts for 1924 what I see are mainly surpluses. The International Copper Study Group anticipates a surplus of 500,000 tons of copper out of world demand around 25 million tons. For cobalt we know there are huge stock in the earth in Congo. And for nickel, with the development of Indonesian production, we are more or less assured to have a market in surplus for the next three years. What contrast, what paradox would I say with what we heard on a long-term basis? On a long-term basis we still see the same analysis that is reports on growing demand, linked of course to green transition. By 2030, that is more or less tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, copper and nickel demand should grow by 70%, cobalt by 150%, and the demand even for graphite and lithium should be multiplied by six or seven. By 2030 we should, we could have, we should know, we could, we might have deficits of 10 to 15% of demand for a copper or nickel, 40 or 45% for other metals, and as you know and you said it, governments have been for all this year frantically searching for mines and resources, be it in the US, be it in EU, and still China remains on many markets, the key and China used its power to put some export quotas, that's a great news of the year. We had export quotas this summer for Germanium and gallium, and just a fortnight ago for graphite. May I remind you that for the moment when you have a battery, its anode is in graphite and China is producing around 70% of world graphite, be it natural or synthetic. Of course, as I told you last year, all those forecasts, we must take into account the fact that we don't know, and there is a factor which we don't master, which is technological progress. You frankly don't know what there will be in batteries in 30 years time, what kind of energy we will use, how we will manage to stock electricity and the rest. In fact, and I would like to use my remaining time just to get away from the critical raw materials as such, and to tell you that, to my mind, the most critical of all raw materials, and in fact for the whole century, the most difficult one will be copper. Copper I would say more than ever, because copper is the green metal par excellence. Today's demand, I told you, is around 25 million tons. By 2035, estimates range between 40 and 50 million tons. And well, just to tell you, an average westerner needs about 250 kilos of copper. An average inhabitant of this world uses 60 kilos. So you have a huge demand coming, and to meet that demand, you can of course go in recycling scrap, but you reach sometime very quickly some limits. Then you can reuse mine waste with lower content. And of course you can have new mines. But new mines, it takes 15 to 20 years, average 17 years to develop a new mine, be it in copper or anything else. And the capital costs are huge. Just let me give you an example. Tech Resources, Canadian company, has a big project in Chile, Quebrada Blanca II. It should produce around 300,000 tons of copper per year. The project projection of cost in 2019 was 5 billion dollars. Now it's 9 billion dollars. First quantum, another Canadian or US company, is active in Panama. The project of Panama Copper is worth 11 billion dollars. It is just now blocked by the Panaman authorities. And just last week, first quantum market cap lost 6 billion dollars on turn-to-stock exchange. In fact, many new projects are barred by political, environmental concerns. And we have the same greens who are advocating energy transition and who are blocking any kind of new mine. Copper, in fact, for me, will speak probably of other metals, lithium, rare earth, etc. The true strategic metal of the 21st century and in fact the true strategic commodity of the 21st century, I think it will be copper. And it's a reverse to ancient times. Recently I was in the south of Spain in Riottinto. Riottinto is probably the oldest functioning mine coming back to the Roman times. At that time copper was used with tin to make bronze and to manufacture spades and so on. Well, it was also the key mineral of the Industrial Revolution. I'm pretty sure it will be exactly the same for the 21st century. Economists we say copper used to be a good economic indicator when speaking of Dr. Copper. Well, I do think that Dr. Copper is back right now. Thank you so much for bringing us directly into the volatility of the prices of the markets, of the speculation, which makes it even more difficult for politicians and administrations to really take the right decisions. I think that was a very good start. And I would like now to turn to the business side. We have Jonathan Coderro with us. Jonathan is a young German working for a pretty young global company, Eurasian Resource Group, which is, in my point of view, one of the greatest hopes that we have, is it really tries to do everything in mining projects all over the world to help us diversify. Jonathan started his career with the Boston Consulting Group, and since 14 years he is dealing with the subject, which we have right now with the critical raw materials, and he is today the number two in this global company and is responsible for the business development of that company. Great that you could make it. Jonathan, the floor is yours. What's the business side? You see that there are changes concerning governments, EU commission. Do you get enough support for your endeavors? Yeah. Well, thanks first of all for having me. It's an honor to be here and very energizing to be on a panel that is so keen on making a difference to this very important topic. As Friedberg mentioned, I'm a mining executive. I've been working in a lot of different countries, most of which are probably not on your vacation wish list. Our company is about 80,000 people. We operate in 20 countries and we supply the metals needed for our global battery transmission. Through our work we've seen firsthand the evolution of this very conversation that we're gathered to discuss and we also recognize the urgency. So let me get right to the point. Building energy systems powered by clean energy technologies requires a huge increase in the supply of critical materials that we just heard. So it's a 400% increase by 2030 or a 600% increase by 2050 to achieve our net zero goals. In other words, if we don't increase the supply massively, we will not maybe but for sure miss our net zero goals. We recognize that the irresponsible behavior of some mining companies over the years eroded the sector's social license to operate and now it's left on us to do much better across the spectrum of ESG considerations because essentially sustainability and the social license go hand in hand. Resources companies need to dust itself off. Our reputation has taken a hit over the decades and rightly so but we cannot hide anymore. We will not be able to perform an uplift communities where they don't want us to operate plain and simple. We operate at the discretion of these communities and society as a whole. We need to take a more active role in communities, not only the host communities in frontier markets where we operate but also and especially the communities in developed markets, the ultimate customers of iPhones, Teslas and Core, that today can hardly name five mining companies if you ask them on the street. This is our fault and our responsibility. At the same time, policymakers need to be open to mining as an industry. We are seeing this in the Middle East where Saudi Arabia has made mining the third pillar of Vision 2030 but we also see adverse forces in Latin America, we just heard, and the mere standstill in Europe. Policymakers and advocates in this room also have the responsibility to not fall for an overly simplistic narrative by way of example, mining companies are bad, electric vehicles are good. The reality is that the EV sector alone will require 165,000 tons of cobalt by 2026 which is the equivalent of the total supply today. EVs also require four times more copper than a combustion engine so as you can see, the narrative isn't as binary as some may suggest. Yes, electric vehicles are good, but we need to accelerate our common understanding that our industry must be part of the solution and not part of the problem. If you're serious about net zero, you have to be pro-mining. Now you may ask, but what about recycling? Well, recycling could help, but a binary argument here is also counterproductive. The answer is that both things are true. To meet the global demand, we need to uplift primary production today and we need to learn more about recycling of batteries and scrap materials. Analysts estimate that by 2050, 40-75% of Europe's clean energy metal needs could come from recycling but if and only if, Europe provides substantial financing and investments now. But as of today, neither sufficient second-life material nor the required recycling technologies exist on an industrial scale. Just ask yourself, how many old smartphones do you keep at home in your drawer? The biggest purchase order in history, as my CEO likes to call it, also requires a fairer distribution of value along the supply chain. We heard the example of the Democratic Republic of Congo that holds 80% of the global cobalt reserves and if you take your smartphone that in the store costs maybe $1,000, the material costs in the smartphone is about $200, the battery is about $20, but only $1.50 is the value of Congo that goes back into this country that is indispensable for even having this device. Where national policymakers find its boundaries, industry participants need to take action. So we at ERG, for example, we brought together market participants to create binding rules of engagement for responsible sourcing. The 140 organization strong global battery alliance and its flagship project, the Battery Passport, is conveying digital information to end consumers about key ESG and lifestyle metrics. So what does it mean? In the very near future, every single EV will have a QR code that allows full transparency on material provenance cradle to grave. In closing, I would like to reference the importance of knowledge sharing and innovation. We heard building a copper mine takes 15 years, sometimes longer. We don't have this time. The role of accelerating exploration through technology is indispensable. We spent at ERG the last couple of years in developing smart exploration technology, among other initiatives, and we're about to unveil in Saudi Arabia a fleet of autonomous mass rover-like sampling robots. This is a technology that we hope to share with governments and industry alike. This is what positive action looks like. Yes, it means sharing some secrets, and we may be even taking a hit in the short term, but it brings us all forward. The future of critical minerals will not be owned by a single company, rather a brain's trust of policy makers, governments, and industry players willing to make a difference. So once again, thanks for having me today and giving me the opportunity to address you today. I'm looking forward to hearing each and every one of your proposals because what is very clear to me is that mining is the contact sports and no one company alone can tackle these issues alone. Thank you so much. It was also fascinating and I think very helpful. I would like now to turn to Christophe Marceau. Christophe is in a way the French official French voice for critical raw materials. He is the deputy director general and the scientific director of the French Geological Survey, BIGM. He's in charge of defining and implementing the overall scientific strategy of that body in different fields. And while he is deeply involved in those issues, for instance he has been vital in launching Offremie, the French observatory in charge of monitoring the CRM value change. So another expert, but someone who really has the government position and who perhaps also is able to convey the one or the other message to the French government what could be extremely helpful. Si vous plaît Christophe, c'est à vous. Thank you very much for your introduction. So it's my pleasure to be with you today and I'm going to try to invite to give you a few insights regarding the critical questions of the critical raw materials. So a lot have already been said regarding the scene of this issue but I want just to maybe add a few things to what has already been mentioned. So first we mentioned a lot the need for the energy transition. For sure it's very important in particular to mitigate the global climate change but we do not have to forget that we have also to handle at the same time the digital transition which is also requiring a very large amount of critical raw materials and for two-thirds of them they are the same as for the energy transition so we may have a kind of trade-off to have between the two and also the development of the emerging countries which require a significant amount of critical raw materials for developing the infrastructure. So altogether it yields to a very significant increase of the demand and the number of you are huge and it's a real issue to assess whether we will be able to meet this demand. I just remind just a few figures. For instance the volume of lithium that will be required by 2040 to develop the electric core is 40 times higher than what we are using today. It's 20 times higher for nickel, cobalt and graphite. It's 10 times higher for the aware of. So it's a very huge number in particular when you consider that in fact it requires that is already been mentioned between 15 and 20 years to open new mines. Another point which is very important is a large number of these metals are not taken directly from the ground for themselves. They are byproducts from over metals which means that in terms of dynamics of the market they are not directly related to the need, to the demand in fact and it means that we have therefore some highly complex value chains and it's already the first challenge to be able to depict, describe, understand all of them. And also the value chains are very long. I mean with large number of transformation states and many of them are dispersed in many countries and it's once again a factor of complexity that we need to be able to understand and to take into account. So it means that in this situation we have some long but also weak value chains which can be pertubated by any events that could occur and we had a large number of disruptions in the last years whatever the size of the disruption maybe two points which is important to keep in mind. First, the critical raw materials are rather dispersed all over the world. So when it is mainly located in a single country it's not because it's the only country where you find it it's mainly because this country has been specialized in this domain has been exploring a lot and has been exploiting this resource but for sure we may find it elsewhere even if it takes time. And second we have also not to forget the key role of China which is not only anymore on the mining side but rather on the refining and transformation and for more than 10 elements right now they are really dominating the market I mean they are more than 90% of the overall supply worldwide is coming from China. So it means that it's a very highly dependence to this country and also a high risk in case of perturbations and it can be very various elements like not only rare earth but also graphite, gallium, germanium, tungsten, magnesium so a large number of elements which are used in many usage. So what can we do in order to recover I will say part of our independence and sovereignty? So first we need to be able to understand quite well all these value chains so it's the domain of the mineral intelligence you mentioned in your introduction that we launched in France dedicated observatory exactly one year ago similar structure exists in other countries and there is a need for increasing this work for networking this type of activity and we are for instance collaborating very efficiently with the DRRA in Germany. Second we need also to ensure an optimized use of the natural resource so we need to deal with to cope with the recycling activities with the secondary resources which is available in the urban mines it's something quite important it's also a very good way in order to develop some new extracting, purification, transformation industry but we all have to keep in mind it will never meet the demand because what you recycle right now is what has been produced 20 years ago roughly the amount of critical raw materials was not the same at that time the type of metals or critical raw materials was different so for sure it's very important but it will never meet all the demand we have so therefore the only way is to open new mines it has to be very clear and as you mentioned very efficiently if you want to be pro energy transition you have to be pro mine development in fact not only in the emerging countries but also in Europe in the developed countries we still have a lot of resources in the underground it's not known and it's not exploited right now mainly for economic and social reasons we'll be back on that later on so we need to develop some new responsible mining activities and it's a huge challenge and last but not least because it's still not enough we'll have to secure supply from third countries thanks to long term contracts, long term strategic partnerships so what's new in 2023 regarding these four lines so I will say that there have been a very significant mobilisation of the government and national government with the creation of several mineral intelligence agencies a development of investment funds and tools in many countries in France for instance a strong development of environmental, societal and governance criteria regulations in particular at the European level in order to ensure that new mines will be responsible mines environmental friendly development of ambitious policy and I have to mention the critical raw material act which is still under discussion at the European level and which is very ambitious regarding the rate of independence for the supply of critical raw materials coming either from primary resources or from recycling also the development of industrial partnerships with Europe, with the United States and so on which is the first steps in order to develop some long term contracts but at the same time and it's also something new we had some restriction measures which have been taken by China regarding Germanium and gallium first in June graphite two weeks ago I'm quite sure the list is not finished so it means that we have to be prepared to a potential not disruption but at least reduction or quotas or production or exportation I would say rather of these minerals which are used in many applications from defense to medicines thanks to energy and so on and third points the number of new projects which arrives on the market is very limited and it's not at scale by comparison to what we need so the main question of the discrepancy between the need of the future and what market is going to be able to to supply is huge and is increasing and it's therefore posing the questions about how can we ensure the energy transition if we do not have the resource my feeling right now is that we are not able we're not going to be able to meet some highly political objectives which has been proposed and voted for instance 2035 obligation of full electrical car in Europe from my perspective not sure we'll have the resources to do that at that year and it's not a question of stockpile of natural resources in the ground it's a question of how fast can you extract this resource to provide it to the market and be able to meet the demand so it's really a question of the dates at which we want to reach this target instead of the target by itself and it's something which is quite important with many repercussions many consequences in particular in terms of political policy development, policymaking and also confidence in the global decision-making process because I'm quite sure that at least at the European level many of the citizens may react regarding the the change in these strong objectives which has been put forward by the government another important message is also the fact that we need new minds it seems that it's very clear even in Europe, even in France so with the CRM Act there is some new exploration programme which is developing right now it's very important but the main question beyond is how are we going to convince our citizens of the interest of building new minds potentially not far from their houses and it's a real question a real debate that need to be open about what are the consequences of our way of life how can we assume the consequence of this way of life and we need to start from now a work in order to increase the acceptability of this new type of activity and it's for sure embed high ethical issues because otherwise it means that we are exporting in fact the detrimental effect of our way of life and I think based on the question you asked what's the main message from 2023 we have some very positive mobilisation from the national government and which is really moving forward the topic is back to the forefront of the geopolitics and it's very important and you can see at least for instance in France in any of the official displacement for our presidents the topic of the critical raw material in the debate but at the same time we still have this perspective of a strong discrepancy between the political trajectory that we try to meet and the effective industrial capabilities to produce the materials so it's for me a potential for a new crisis not only for the market of metals but also in terms of confidence in the policymaking process thank you very much once again very interesting and important and well we compose this panel very carefully so we had the academic view the government view the business view and now we have the finance view with Nicolas Piau and also the energy and climate view because Nicolas has been a long time working for ANGIE in France huge energy company so he is an energy man basically but then he started to set up his own company that is Tilt Capital and Tilt Capital is an asset management group which supports startups well startups in different phases concerning the energy transition well that is an extremely important and interesting endeavor and Nicolas we are happy to have you here and the floor is yours thanks a lot Friebert very happy to be there it's really an honour and it's also quite intimidating because frankly after Philippe, Jonathan and Christoph as you were saying I'm not at all an expert of this field I'm more on the receiving side of all of what you've described as an energy guy and actually I'm going to try to bring on board what I've just heard during the panel I think for us what it means when you look at it from the energy perspective and that's maybe the first message is I would strongly oppose any views that say that with the energy transition the energy trilemma is dead you may have heard this you may have heard that you know energy trilemma is basically you need to compose between three pillars sustainability and security of supply and I think what 2023 has brought is actually that security of supply has become the main focus of that energy trilemma I think it bears two challenges the first one is we should not forget about the other two affordability and sustainability and we'll come back to that I think the second implication is that it brings back energy in the field of geopolitics and industry of the course of the last decade energy has been too much seen as a financial opportunity for a very simple reason it was the early stages of renewables development it was about securing contracts, EPCs financing etc and there were no questions asked also because it was very limited in scope compared to other forms of energy I think today this is changing radically and we need to acknowledge that so I think that would be the first message is what we are seeing as energy investors is that for all the messages that have been passed by the panel is security of supply is coming back as a major topic in any energy investment and what it means for us for example is today we may be embarking and you open Fridbert saying Russian gas may have been a problem here or there but eventually that's not the real issue the real issue is much more the dependency on China on a number of topics and in general with those key materials today when you look at companies in which we invest this is not a topic this is not a topic because it is not seen if you want to obtain any if you want to obtain an inverter if you want to obtain nitrogen gallium based chip or silicon carbide based chip you have no issues the question is how long will that be and so of course all what you've mentioned around you know enhancing the extraction enhancing the recycling etc so having additional resources is something that as energy investors we welcome but I think we should be much more vocal about the need for that I absolutely agree there will be no energy transition without additional mining without additional extraction but then it also bears the question of sustainability and here let me maybe come back to one element coming from that world the thing that I would have one message on this is let's try to not make the same mistakes that we've have done over the last decades on oil and gas we cannot afford to have another Ogoni disaster or Makondo disaster with the mining industry for those critical raw materials I think if we have that and you said it very clearly there is there is probably some image issue but beyond the image I think there is the fact that if we have something of the magnitude of what happened in Nigeria with the Ogoni community or with Makondo with BP I think it will put a very very cast a very strong shadow on the reality of the sustainability of that energy transition and for this and please bear with me I'm not at all an expert on that I do think we need to engage into more cooperation on this front actually I even think that this whole critical material issue could be a way to foster a greater cooperation between consuming countries and producing countries or extracting countries because let's be clear also today when we are saying we need to mine more we need to refine more who are the distant theories of those materials it's rather the developed and rich I would say even rich population of the more developed countries how does that affect locally the people who are on the land where you have this and this processing and I think here we need to engage into more cooperation I think it should translate into profit sharing I think we should maybe learn some lessons from some oil countries that have been fairly good at this I always used to say to people why don't we drill for oil and gas in Switzerland where there are no taxes virtually no taxes where there are 78% taxes well because there is oil and gas in Norway and I don't think the Norwegian government or the Norwegian people would tell you that it has affected us in a bad way that there was 78% taxes on each barrel that was taken out of the ground and I think we should have that same kind of reflection on the critical raw material we need to use that to transfer scales money maybe try to create value chains locally so that we actually build not only some resilience of course we need to do it in Europe but we also need to build those trusted value chains on the critical raw materials outside of Europe or India or wherever so that we can multiply those trusted value chain and I remember last year Caldo Malmubarak said that he was the UAE were focusing on those trusted value chain I think this is one example, one area where we should be targeting this type of cooperation and of course there's a lot of we can say a lot about ESG etc but I absolutely believe that if we were not sensitive to environmental and social issues in mining we will have a backlash on the energy transition because people will say it is actually not a clean transition an adjust transition I think this is critical and finally the last one I would like to make is more as an energy guy and I'll be more raising questions actually than providing answers there was a very interesting report from the IEA following the increase in commodity prices in 21-22 and the freight prices actually when you look at this trend commodity prices plus freight prices led to a 25% increase in capex for renewable energy offshore wind onshore wind even solar power etc one reason for that we talked about electric vehicles if you take an offshore wind turbine you have 15 sorry 15 ton per megawatt of critical materials in offshore wind turbine you have 1 ton per megawatt for a gas turbine if you consider that a typical offshore wind turbine today is 15 megawatt that's 225 tons of critical material that is actually 40% of that is copper if you have a doubling of the price of copper for an offshore wind turbine it's just one million one million more costs for each offshore wind turbine so I think one thing we need to be aware of is that we have traded a short-term variable cost-based energy economy basically energy prices and energy prices were determined by the marginal cost of gas or what have you called to a certain extent to an economy that's going to be increasingly linked to fixed cost price and that has dramatic changes to the energy market not saying it is bad or good I'm just saying it will have implications if you invest in a time where the cycle is very high on commodity we will be locking for 25 or 30 years higher cost and hence we will have impact on competitiveness and so I'm aware that I'm not bringing any solutions there I'm just saying that we need to be very cautious of all those implications I think one thing it means is as an investor I would say we need to find ways to soften the boom and bust cycles I think innovation is critical and cobalt is a good example we first had NMC batteries which were 532 so 5% nickel 50% nickel 30% manganese and 20% cobalt now we're running rather on 900 so it's actually 90 nickel 0.5 manganese 0.5 cobalt indeed innovation will help us build some resilience at the same time if we innovate and we deprive some of the countries that see that as a way to create sustainable wealth for them this will also cause a problem so that means that again this calls for heightened cooperation to avoid that some countries that may want to today invest massively in some of those minerals if there is a massive innovation in 10 years don't find themselves with stranded assets and a link to unjust transition well thank you thank you all for fascinating views from different angles for your time discipline which gives us now the possibility to have time for discussion first of all I would like to ask you and the panel whether someone wants to reply or contradict or especially support something what somebody else in the panel said anyone please Christoph thank you very much maybe I just want to be back on what you mentioned regarding what they call the responsible mining activities which is very important for the future and I want to specifically stress that first we need to invest in terms of research development to define what's going to be the responsible mining I mean how to design a mine with a very low environmental footprint a very low water consumption very low waste production and so on so you can decline on every type of environmental indicators so we have already some clue we already some directions to move forward but we still need to invest in this direction second very important the social aspect and for sure all what we are doing right now at least in France regarding the development of new mines either on our country or abroad is within this concept and within also the aim of relocating significant part of the added value in the country helps the country to develop this type of mining activity instead of let's say dirty mining and so I fully agree with what you mentioned it's a real critical point to address and to success if we want to be able to develop this new mining activity Jonathan Yeah I would like to make one thing very clear the materials that we're talking about they will not come from G7 countries they will come from different countries and the statement or assuming that this will be the case is also very dangerous because we lose time in taking action and putting attention where it's needed the most prospective projects are for example in the case of Copacobald and the copper belt that's Zambia Democratic Republic of Congo up to Angola the next generation of new projects will probably in the orogenic belt that's Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq not on the radar for everyone now we're talking about Saudi Arabia the Nubian shield the Arabic shield and it's very dangerous if we seem to believe that we can get away with putting policies in place and developing and subsidizing projects in the developed countries we need to put our attention to these type of countries and I totally agree we need to do this in a sustainable manner but we need to take the responsibility in solving the problems there and not here Thank you, Philipp I perfectly agree with what Nicolas said about the necessity to take care of environmental and social problems but you have also unfortunately to take care of political problems and remember one thing which is valid for fossil fuels but also and historically far more for metal mining this is what I call the commodity curse remember that a country which bases its development only on mining is fairly often an unstable and corrupt one let's put it frankly if there is a country which should be at the top of African development it should be the democratic republic of Congo because of because of Kabul because of Colton, because of diamonds the DLC is what it is right now so unfortunately we have to live with that and that explains why there are very few countries in the world that really manage their commodity curse Norway is the case Chile for a certain time was one now they are thinking of nationalizing their resources which is probably not a good solution but when I was for diamonds but there are very few cases of country which have managed to advert the commodity curse so this is something which we have to take into account and the fact that anyway the only good forecast that honestly I'm never sure an economist can be honest by the way but if I were an honest economy the only forecast I could make on all those metals is that tomorrow prices will be different than today and the only thing I'm sure of is the volatility of prices and on that volatility we must manage to build long term strategies good luck I would like to turn to the audience I have two voices here first the lady in the second row then the lady in the first row and then you please Marie says and if you would briefly introduce yourself please I'm Marie Rogébilo producer from Cameron so thank you for your very inspiring and fascinating panel after having listened to you one of the major issue here is still environmental problems and you alluded to that and I'm sure you are aware of the about the electric battery and that is not that clean you know all the kind of problems it's posing to environment carbon footprint when you compare it to the traditional batteries etc etc so how come that I would say the electric battery has been fully charged full speed despite of that everyone isn't that front has allowed for billions developed and etc etc how come and how do you intend to solve all those problems so that is one of the first question the second one is how can you enforce the need for the producing countries like DRC, African countries whoever they are because everybody knows that there's a huge problem I like the reference to the Ogoni but who can enforce that that should we rely on the goodwill of the actors of the chain or should we think of a governing body to enforce a better reputation thank you I suggest that we collect a few voices and then turn back to the panel lady in the first row please thank you very much appreciated the word of Mr Corbero these cell phones and all these very high tech industries happening in the field the minerals are the mines and minerals are coming from southern countries African in particular and when I hear you I mean you're doing the right you're saying the right thing but why it is not happening in the field why it's a completely different story environment she said about it but the worth is so many problems and sometimes it's difficult for them to enforce their own legislation but it doesn't even make sense for me from an economical point of view mining companies you rely on are operating in low less environment child work of course polluting the lakes and no investment is ever within the community they're surrounded by so it doesn't make much logic for me because the next step is they're going to be sort of kicked out of many places with the new generation of leaders coming in in Africa because this is not going to last so I think you guys who are at the end of the spectrum should talk to those company that are your providers because you might be running out very quickly but this is not going to end and this is the major major outcry of the young generation of African being looted because that's the word and nothing is being done but when we are in for us the right things are said but never done so what are your takes on that because what you see is what is going to happen in Niger and now it's going to be a lot of problems because the new military regime is focusing on them but they should have you know prevented that had they done the right things I don't think it would have happened but this is going to be a general trend in Africa so your industries might quickly be at risk because you will not be having at the same cost in the same condition the product you need will develop your industries so what's your take on that because the talk is there that's what Marie Rocher was saying but it doesn't change over six decades but it's going to stop because now it's really really the hot topic and if somebody like me is in power I can tell you that it's going to be one of my priority because it cannot last it's impossible thank you both of you for your comments and when I said we carefully balanced the panel we did well at least one mistake we should have had someone from the global south here on the panel on these issues and therefore I'm particularly grateful the microphone goes to this gentleman there I'm particularly grateful that you raised your voice and that you did so quite forcefully I take two more voices and then turn to the panel for a final word it's the gentleman here and the gentleman in the fourth row over there okay I'm Daniel Landler from Paris and I have a question which is a real question, an honest question not an implicit approach when everyone on the panel seemed to take for granted that demand was inelastic so that by 2030, 2080 there would be the need of so many billions of tons of this and that as if it were a law of nature it's not a law of nature it's at most a law of statistics with a little bit of implicit sociology how are you going to take into account the fact that maybe by 2030 or 2050 people will decide not to have an EV and have a bicycle instead and again I'm not being ethical or anything normative, I just want to know how come you don't seem to want to take into account the fact that the demand is not rigid thank you so much sir, please hear Arash from Dubai I think it was very clear from the discussions how critical these materials are for strategic industries like energy renewables etc, AI robotics you name it what I was kind of missing is the financial aspect of it all you mentioned Dr. Copper one of the most critical materials and so on but when you look at geopolitics to me the most significant, most critical that's not even on the EU list of critical materials was gold when Russia invaded Ukraine and March the ruble dropped almost historic lows immediately following that Putin came out and said he's going to pay 5000 rubles per ounce of gold March 2022 to June 2023 the ruble appreciated 158 percent so there was an effective temporary gold standard for three months where he stabilized the currency and essentially negated the sanctions for a while now that sent a message to China, especially after the freezing of the Russian funds China has gotten a message that they cannot rely on the US dollar as a reserve currency going forward if they have intentions of doing whatever they want to do the BRICS recently came out and said they want to come out with their currency perhaps backed by gold there's been record buying by central banks especially in Russia and China of gold I haven't heard gold mentioned anywhere in the EU it's always about renewables etc but if you don't have the financial bedrock to finance all of these industries let's be honest the energy industry in Europe is highly subsidized and it relies on the primacy of western financial institutions almost finished to actually finance these industries so what about gold where do you see that great statements you have now the difficult task to answer in everyone has 30 seconds so just take one question which you think is there were many statements also so go ahead we start with Jonathan let me maybe tackle a few topics that the ladies in the front mentioned and I think it's a very important topic that requires a lot more discussion and a lot more engagement and it's a very complex topic so I'll just pick a few of the things that you mentioned so first of all with regards to dirty mines and the pollution there is no ambiguity on understanding what a clean mine is and what a dirty mine is there's very rigid global standards that needs to be followed and there's a whole ton of expert that go into the nitty gritty of doing this now whether this is done and followed that's a different topic it must be enforced and must be leveled and we need to have more balancing and more audits but you need to differentiate between industrial scale mines semi-industrial artisanal mines and the second topic of yours was with regards to a more fair value distribution along the supply chain this is what I mentioned as well in my brief speech I fully agree this is not a simple one we see tendencies of politics to enforce more resource nationalism increase taxes and tariffs usually with quite the opposite effect I think what we need to do is and it's both the individual companies as well as industry organizations to invest heavily in the communities itself it's about the creation of jobs it's also the creation of alternative livelihoods just to mention a few things thank you, Philippe excuse me just about what Mr Anders said how do we forecast demand I do perfectly agree with you Eliard said that you shouldn't look at past with today's eyes it's wrong to look at the futures with today's technologies it's clear that we don't know and I'm a bit I take what is on the market as far as forecast for 2040 2050 are concerned I don't know if my grandchildren will have cars maybe cars will disappear you right will be all cycling or will try to walk and so on and well the only thing I'm pretty sure of there might be some batteries will there be lithium or nickel or cobalt or anything else I don't know I'm pretty sure that copper will be extremely important because I don't imagine a world without electricity and for the moment well you're more scientific than I am it seems to me that copper you can't escape it by the way last gold gold we can get rid of it it's Keynes who said it was a barbaric relic gold isn't it's a nonsense you know what Warren Buffett said it was completely stupid to go so deep underground and to get gold and then to bury it in the vaults of central bounds so gold is completely stupid right now it's verging two thousand dollars an ounce because there are some troubles in the world so it's a good indicator but it's a much stupid investment because gold when you invest in gold you freeze your money money has to circulate money has to be invested money has to create wealth gold destroys wealth so by the way we'll have private talk with my african friends about the share the fair share thank you Christoph thank you very much so maybe I'm going to be back on the environmental issues and social issues with regards to mining activity so I fully agree with what you both mentioned very much for your comment which was very fruitful I want to say that first we aim to develop any new man at the highest environmental standard as possible and it's not only a claim I mean we are developing the regulations and the regulation will apply not only for mines in Europe but for any material entering in Europe it's what we call for instance the battery passport in which will be described the environmental footprint the material which are used and they will have to be at the highest standards otherwise they will not be able to enter on the European market so it's a way, it's not the only one but it's one of the way to try to develop the highest possible standards and regarding the fair share which is also very important any project that we are developing in a country it's not only a mine it's a mine with all the transformation industry around in order to relocate the added value in the country and for instance the agreement which has been signed in DRC some years ago is within this framework so we will build some plant in DRC not only mining Merci Nicolas Maybe to Daniel's point I fully agree I think that's what I was trying to say on strandedness of assets as we go forward because both innovation and your right social behaviour so I agree this is one of our concern not much we can do now but you're absolutely right that we should be very careful to not lock in too much position in this fully agree to the point of fairness I will use Jerry Mayer's comment in Margin Call we'll have to pay and I genuinely think so I think yesterday when we talked about transfer from rich economies to developing economies we need to pay the real price of this energy transition that we are fueling and for that I think it needs it means higher royalties potentially that stays locally it means that we need to probably subsidise so that also local populations it has an impact on electricity prices or anything it needs to be subsidised by the richer economies people will say this is not acceptable from the western point of view but this is absolutely acceptable because this is exactly what we need in terms of international cooperation in my view rather than just giving money it's better that we invest that money locally by remunerating the real price of what we are asking as a material thank you I think this was a great panel great speakers one disadvantage which you pointed out very clearly with your remarks here from the first and second row we are still too Eurocentric in what we are doing we have less and less people relatively less and less power in the world but we believe that we are still the core of the world and that is wrong and therefore it is I think one message that we take well if we do this again I would definitely ask for an African or an Asian voice here perhaps not only one but two and that is what we learn thank you very much for your attendance and your interest