 That's the main question and I Introduce the first speaker. I asked all speakers to be brief. We said ten minutes So that we have time to discuss within the panel, but also with you first speaker is Philip Salman Philip 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 who knows more about critical raw materials than Philip 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 Philip Well, thanks very much Besides I would say I don't think I'm real expert on critical raw materials Christophe Princeau is probably for that far better than me In fact a cyclops were publishing a Commodity yearbook so we cover all kinds of commodities Also Sometime we might be wrong It's 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 where what I called the electric materials that were lithium the 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 each which even a low of certain cents per pound Some months ago. In fact the only all over of all those metals which behaved I would say a bit more positively was copper Also last year we were around ten thousand dollars per ton now. We are hardly around eight thousand Let's be frank be it Electric metals criticals strategic or just common non-fruits metals All metals markets are I've 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. Well 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 Anticipation anticipated demand 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 forecast for 1924 what I see are mainly Surpluses the international commerce 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 air scene 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 a 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 percent Cobalt by one hundred and fifty percent 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 50 percent of 10 to 15 percent of demand for a couple or nickel 30 or 45 percent 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 being in EU and still China remains on many markets the key And China use 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? It's another isn't 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 It's 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 and Well, just to tell you an average Westerner Needs about 200 250 kilos of copper and 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 some time very quickly some limits then you can reuse mine waste with low or 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 cost are huge. Just let me give you an example Tech resources Canadian company as a big project in Chile quebrada quebrada Blanca 2 It should produce around 300,000 tons of copper per year the project projection of cost in 2019 was five billion dollars now. It's nine billion dollars first quantum another Canadian camp 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 six billion dollars on turn to a stock exchange in fact many in your project are barred by political environmental concerns, and we have the same greens which Who are advocating energy transition and we are blocking any kind of new mine? copper in fact for me Will speak probably of other metals lithium rare earth, etc But the true strategic metal of the 21st century and in fact the true strategic commodity of the 21st century I think it will be cobalt Sorry, it will be copper and it's a reverse to ancient times Recently I was in the south of Spain in a Rio Tinto Rio Tinto has is a probably the oldest Functioning mine coming back to the Roman times at that time copper was used with tin to make bronze and to 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 Economist we say copper used to be a good economic indicator when we're speaking of dr. Copper Well, I do think that copper dr. Copper is back right now Thank you so much for for bringing us directly into the volatility of the prices of the Markets of the speculation and which makes it even more difficult for for politicians and Administrations to well really take the right decisions. I think that was a very good start