Does European Society need an European Mining Industry? The example of Portugal Luís Martins

Let's begin with a simple exercise: Think in your daily lives and try to find a single service, object or act which not depends, directly or indirectly, on mineral resources

Nothing? Maybe it’s because it is very hard to find it! Or even impossible! Our ENTIRE life style is based directly or indirectly on MINERAL RESOURCES

Let's pick up an example of a commodity we use every time: electricity. Whatever the way we choose to produce it… … we need mineral resources! Si In Al Fe … Fe Nd … U…U… Coal CH4 … Aggregates Limestone Fe … Fe Cu …

At this moment nobody has doubts that mineral resources have been crucial to the development of all human civilizations and got to the top of the podium in nowadays life style.

Do you want to give up of this life style? OK… … but you STILL need MINERAL RESOURCES!

Moreover: mineral resources, through its upstream and downstream industries, are responsible for millions of jobs in Europe!

However, several factors as the globalization, the emerging economies, the environmental responsibility and the NIMBY approach in the last decades pushed EU to a serious situation: a dependency from the outside in what concern to very important raw materials. Therefore, now it’s time to find solutions to assure a sustainable and secure supply of raw materials to EU!

The Raw Materials Initiative proposed 3 logical, wise and necessary actions, as part of an integrated strategy to do it: -1st Pillar – ensure access to raw materials from international markets under the same conditions as other industrial competitors; -2nd Pillar – set the right framework conditions within the EU in order to foster sustainable supply of raw materials from European sources; -3rd Pillar - boost overall resource efficiency and promote recycling to reduce the EU’s consumption of primary raw materials and decrease the import dependence.

The 1st Pillar measures are, unquestionably, very important in a short time strategy but don’t solve the problem, just mitigates it. And we really have to meditate and decide what we (EU) want for our future. REE W In Ge Sb ?

Moreover: European Mining and Processing Industries, during the last years, improved significantly in terms of environmental, social and economical responsibility and safety at work. In simple words, EU Mining Industries have been adopting sustainable practices. What about outside EU? /In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind- power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html The lake of toxic waste at Baotou, China, which has been dumped by rare earth processing plants in the background. Environmental responsibility? Miners form a human chain while digging an open-pit mine near Kobu, in north-eastern Congo. Social responsibility? Finbarr O’Reilly/Reuters/File

Put in practice the measures included in the 3rd Pillar is a MUST! Recycling is a double need in our society: as a valuable source of raw materials and as a way to manage the tonnes of waste we produce. X

But when we think in turning waste into resources we need to start from the base of the chain: the mining waste. Europe has centuries of mining waste production and disposal, which constitutes a huge potential of valuable resources, even of the most critical ones.

However, the secure and sustainable Europe’s supply, at medium and long term time, is very much supported on the 2nd Pillar strategy. The low production and high import flows to Europe of certain mineral commodities, specially metals and some industrial minerals, is not an issue of low potential within the EU. EU does have important mineral resources potential…

… on land, ….

… even of the most critical ones to the EU…

… and also off-shore! Cu Zn Polymetallic Massive Sulphides Au Ag Polymetallic nodules and Co rich ferromanganese crusts Off-shore aggregates and heavy minerals Mn Ni Fe Co Monazite (REE) Ilmenite (Ti) Aggregates Au (…)(…) Cruise: TTR-11 (2001); RV Prof. Logachev Station: TV-AT-24 Location: Nameless Seamount Depth: ≈1850 m UGM-LNEG Mn Fe Cu Pt REE

Nevertheless, assure the actual and future access, both on and off-shore, to European raw materials, needs: Recognition of their parity with other natural resources; Develop and implement land use policies which clearly integrates mineral resources and avoids conflicts, specially the ones which may compromise the actual and future access to known mineral occurrences and deposits; Develop and implement Mineral Resources strategies and policies in support of a sustainable and responsible mining industry at the Member State Level.

Kundig et al., 1997

But, to implement responsible planning it is necessary TO KNOW, Therefore, we need to improve geological knowledge. And this doesn’t mean just to improve the knowledge of what is already discovered but to develop and apply new technologies and approaches to find new deposits, specially the deepest ones. The proof that it is still possible to discover mineral deposits in Europe, is the recent find of a new high grade copper ore body in the very well known Neves Corvo mine area: Semblana.

GEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE IS AS IMPORTANT AS HAVING A GOOD ROAD NETWORK LULA DA SILVA

The needed: -cooperation between Member States, integrating Geological Surveys, industry, national mining authorities, universities and other research entities; -research projects with new and holistic approaches; -development and implementation of Mineral Resources policies/strategies at Member State level; -Implementation of good practices on Land Use Planning to integrate Mineral Resources; -valuing mining wastes turning it into resources; -recycling; -… already started! But we need to go further.

The Raw Materials Innovation Partnership proposal, has 5 key components: - Developing new innovative technologies and solutions for sustainable raw materials supply - Developing new innovative technologies and solutions for the substitution of critical materials - Improving Europe's raw materials knowledge and infrastructure base - Improving the regulatory framework via promotion of excellence and promoting recycling through public procurement and private initiatives - International cooperation This is a wise and balanced way to move forward and target the true real secure and sustainable Europe’s supply of raw materials, capitalizing the work already developed by the Raw Materials Supply Group and other actions, as some EU recent and on going projects.

The example of Portugal Portugal, in the last years, as all the Europe, saw its mining sector declining. The implementation of several environmental restrictions, many times coming from the transposition of European Directives, in some cases with a wrong interpretation, together with the week social acceptance of this industrial activity, frequently manipulated by environmental groups without technical knowledge in this matter, has created a lot of difficulties or even impeding the access to mineral resources. The land use policies and tools ignored a lot of times the mineral resources specificity, not treating and integrating them in parity with other natural resources on those policies and tools. Was not taking into account that mineral resources are non renewable resources, formed and distributed by natural geological processes and, therefore, are not controlled by man. That’s why it’s fundamental to assure the accessibility to them or not impede their future use, giving to the soil an appropriate classification.

The example of Portugal After this “dark period”, the mining sector lives today very promising days, not ignoring that Portugal has a very complex and diversified geology, which endows the country with an important potential in several mineral resources. Another important factors are the mining legislation, an excellent transports and the governmental support, through DGEG and LNEG/LGM. Those entities have contributed for having today a relevant number of promising projects and their articulated actuation provoked that a crescent number of land use plans and policies integrate mineral resources, with the perspective of safeguard, valorise and use them. Make geomining information available through Web it’s also very important in the support to mining companies and public entities responsible for land use. The results of this context, associated to other factors referred before, had an important impact in the mining sector, well demonstrated by the great increase in the number of exploration applications, specially in 2010 (60) and 2011 (34, until 30 June).

Final remarks The mining sector is passing through a very positive momentum, in which the metal prices are increasing continuously, provoking the development of a lot of exploration projects and that new mines are open (or reopen). This context opens an unique opportunity to the mining industry, but also brings important challenges in terms of innovation in the different phases of their projects, leading to the integration of new methodologies of exploration, optimized efficient technologies of extraction and integral exploitation of the resources and mining waste reduction. The EU, as we saw, knows this context and in many of its member states we are assisting to a similar situation. The EC has stressed, through several initiatives and documents, the mining industry importance, in a global and integrated perspective and including all the mineral resources life cycle.

The Raw Materials Innovation Partnership launching, referred before, includes, among other actions, the implementation of 10 “pilot plants”, distributed by Europe, where exploration, prospecting, exploitation, processing, beneficiation, reutilization and recycling activities will be developed. This Innovation Partnership should constitute a determinant factor to foment the adoption by the different member states of policies more favourable to the extractive sector and to increment I&D projects financing, at national and European levels, that almost didn’t exist in the last years and since the III Research Framework Program (Brite – Euram, ). It’s now time for Europe to come back to look to its resources and mining potential, that continues to exist, abandoning consume unsustainable policies from third countries and to where were exported at the same time too much environmental and social problems. Final remarks

Portugal should capitalize more its mining potential and it will be very important that at least one of the pilot plants referred before will be implemented in the Iberian Pyrite Belt, our main metallogenetic province and/or on the Lucky Strike Hydrothermal field (Mid Atlantic Ridge - SW Azores). At the same time, between the actions that should be developed by the main entities related with the Portuguese mining (DGEG, LNEG, EDM), with the support of the Central Government and in articulation with com regional governmental institutions (CCDRs, DREs) and Municipalities, are: - national legislation improvement, in terms of processes simplification and speed up, fiscal incentives for the exploration activities (we should remember that this is an high risk investment); - continuation of the political support to the mitigation of the environmental impact related with the mineral resources exploration and exploitation; Final remarks - Portugal

- clarification of the strategy related with the radioactive minerals, specially the uranium. Portugal has relevant uraniferous resources, which has being attracted various international companies in the last years. Nevertheless, the exploration and exploitation projects are on stand by, because of political indefinition; - promotion of a better articulation between the governmental entities with competencies in the mineral resources management and the industry; - clear orientations for the systematic inclusion of the mineral resources safeguard, valorisation and exploitation on the land use policies and instruments, at national, regional and municipal levels; - definition of a strategy for the former mining areas rehabilitation, which includes the components of environmental remediation, mining waste economical exploitation, security interventions and mining heritage valorisation; Final remarks - Portugal

- incentives to the development of abandoned mining areas rehabilitation projects, following the principles referred in the previous point; - support to mineral resources thematic geological mapping projects, including its inventory, exploration and valorisation and, therefore, increasing the Portuguese mineral potential; - continuous and increasing availability of the geomining information, following the INSPIRE European Directive orientations; - support to the education of geologists and mining engineers by the national universities; - development of pedagogic actions showing the mineral resources importance and their benefits for the society, facilitating, like that, the “social licence” granting in new mining projects. Those orientations can be aggregated in a National Strategy for the Mineral Resources (like several European countries done recently, with a special reference to Finland and Sweden), adapted to the country dimension and to its geomining characteristics. Final remarks - Portugal

Any doubts about the need of an European mining industry by the European society? I don’t think so… But we must keep the “3 pillars” and all of them included in the EU 2020 Strategy, on a balanced way! That you’ll be the most sustainable way of assure a sustainable and safe supply of raw materials to our society. And will definitely contribute to combat our current economical crises! Final remarks