The UK government has said it is targeting friendly, “like-minded nations” as part of its efforts to protect the country’s access to critical minerals.
In a response to a report on the vulnerabilities of the country’s supply chain, it also said it would support critical mineral recycling efforts, provide more data on the UK’s supply chain to help boost resilience and support the development of domestic skills.
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) launched its critical imports strategy in January with the aim of boosting “supply chain resilience for critical goods” entering the country. That report also set out the government’s long-term vision on supply chain protection.
Vulnerable supply chain
The Task & Finish Group on Critical Mineral Resilience for UK Industry, an expert group set up to assess the UK’s dependence on critical minerals, issued a report on 19 December, outlining the vulnerabilities in the UK supply chain.
In her response to the group’s report, economic security minister Nusrat Ghani said critical minerals had been a “niche subject for many years”.
“Now, the world is waking up to the importance of the issue and the UK is at the forefront of an international effort to secure our supply chains.”
The Task and Finish Group identified several areas where the UK supply chain was threatened, highlighting that several key sectors – such as automotive, renewable energy and electronic – were likely to be hit hard by the absence of critical minerals.
Trade partnerships
The Task and Finish Group had recommended the UK shift its sourcing critical mineral away from countries like China in order to limit the UK’s exposure to “geopolitically fraught supply chains.”
In its response, the government said that it would include critical minerals in its trade strategy, targeting countries that produce critical minerals and have also have both a “like-minded approach” to the supply chain and a “a stated desire to work collaboratively with the UK”.
“The UK will continue to build international trade and partnerships on critical minerals to support our security of supply of critical minerals.”
The response also said that it would take into account priorities like human rights, sustainability and transparency when engaging with other nations.
Recycling
The government also committed to building a circular economy for critical minerals.
Recycling is relatively new in many critical mineral industries. Yet recycling rare earth metals, for example, as much as 88% less energy than producing the same materials using traditional mining methods, according to one study in 2014.
The government pointed to initiatives like Circular Economy Centre for Technology Metals (Met4Tech) and UKRI Circular Critical Materials Supply Chains (CLIMATES) programme, both of which support “innovation” in recycling critical minerals.
Strategies, such as reducing the use of cobalt, adopting “thrifting practices” for platinum, and efforts to decrease the reliance on iridium in certain chemical processes were cited as examples of this.
Data and skills
The taskforce also called for more data to help support better decision making.
“Better data will enable manufacturers to understand more about their supply chains and material provenance.”
In its response, the government noted the difficulty in getting data from a “volatile” critical minerals market, but said that several data initiatives and pilot schemes were “in hand” to help government and industry understand more about the commodities landscape.
It also said it was working with institutions, such as the Camborne School of Mines and the University of Leicester, to train more researchers and workers on critical minerals.