Six times more. That is how much the world will need to expand the supply of critical minerals over the next 20 years, according to an International Energy Agency estimate cited by Gustavo Pimenta, the chief executive of Vale, Brazil's mining giant and one of the world's largest iron ore producers. For ordinary Brazilians, this is about the jobs and export revenue at stake in a global race for the materials inside phone batteries, electric cars and computer chips.
Speaking on Friday (28) at the Lide Mining Forum in Sao Paulo, Pimenta said these minerals will be the "new oil" of coming generations and that Brazil is falling behind in the race. His remarks were covered by Folha de S.Paulo, Poder360 and CNN Brasil.
"Critical minerals will play a very important geopolitical and economic role over the next hundred years. It is the new fuel, the new oil of the next generations," the executive said at the event.
To show how much ground Brazil has lost, Pimenta compared the country with Australia on iron ore. In 2010, both produced similar volumes, around 380 million and 400 million tonnes respectively. Fifteen years later, Australia reached 1 billion tonnes a year while Brazil stayed at the same level, according to the figures he presented. He said the same pattern occurred with nickel and copper.
The gap also shows in the weight of mining in the economy. The sector accounts for 14% of Australia's GDP (gross domestic product, the total value of everything a country produces) and 12% of Chile's, against only 4% in Brazil. It is as if two neighbors had equally rich backyards, but only one of them invested to harvest the fruit.
Understand
Critical minerals are raw materials essential to modern industry, such as lithium, nickel, copper and cobalt. Without them there are no batteries, wind turbines or artificial intelligence equipment, which explains why countries are competing for reserves and investment in the sector.
In the executive's view, Brazil's main bottleneck is slowness. A mining project now takes an average of 15 years from exploration to operation, long enough for a child to go from daycare to high school. Pimenta called for faster environmental licensing without losing rigor, changes to legislation on natural cavities and an expansion of geological mapping.
Only 28% of Brazilian territory is known from a mining standpoint, compared with more than 70% in Australia and Chile, according to the numbers he presented. The Vale CEO also backed a critical minerals bill currently moving through Brazil's Congress. "Brazil is a blessed country. We have the periodic table in our territory, all the minerals in abundance. However, despite all this potential, we are falling behind in the race," he said, as quoted by CNN Brasil.