Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
W.H. Bryan Mining & Geology Research Centre, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
Environ Sci Technol. 2021 Apr 20;55(8):4324-4331. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.0c08546. Epub 2021 Mar 24.
Criticality and supply risk models seek to address concerns of potential disruption to global metal supply. These models need to incorporate disruption events that arise from within the mining industry's market structure. In this paper, we review what we refer to as events of "mine life cycle disruption". These include project abandonments, premature closures, care and maintenance, and ownership changes. Life cycle disruptions not only cause production disruptions but also embed social and environmental risks in global metal markets. They arise from the highly variable business environment in which the resources sector operates. Changing commodity prices directly influence mining revenues and drive decisions on whether to halt or push forward a project. While some disruptions are involuntary and induced by external economic conditions, others are purposefully triggered by certain mining companies that use them to their advantage. We examine the frequency of these disruptions based on a contemporary global inventory of 35,000 mining projects and present the findings against recent developments in the research literature. We conclude that life cycle disruption events are an important consideration in balancing the demand for metals and the social and environmental impacts of mining and propose pathways for managing these events and their effects.
关键和供应风险模型旨在解决全球金属供应潜在中断的问题。这些模型需要纳入源自矿业市场结构内部的中断事件。在本文中，我们回顾了我们称之为“矿山生命周期中断”的事件。这些事件包括项目放弃、过早关闭、维护和所有权变更。生命周期中断不仅会导致生产中断，还会在全球金属市场中嵌入社会和环境风险。它们源于资源部门运营的高度可变的商业环境。商品价格的变化直接影响矿业收入，并决定是否停止或推进项目。虽然有些中断是由外部经济条件引起的非自愿中断，而另一些则是由某些矿业公司有意触发的，这些公司利用这些中断来为自己谋取利益。我们根据当代全球 35000 个矿业项目的库存，基于这些中断的频率进行了检查，并根据研究文献中的最新发展提出了发现。我们得出的结论是，生命周期中断事件是平衡金属需求以及矿业的社会和环境影响的重要考虑因素，并提出了管理这些事件及其影响的途径。
