The European Critical Raw Materials review
27 May 2014 02:41 PM
Raw materials are fundamental to
Europe’s economy, and they are essential for maintaining and improving
our quality of life. Recent years have seen a rapid growth in the number of
materials used across products. Securing reliable and undistorted access of
certain raw materials is of growing concern within the EU and across the globe.
As a consequence of these circumstances, the Raw Materials Initiative was
instigated to manage responses to raw materials issues at an EU level. Critical
raw materials have a high economic importance to the EU combined with a high
risk associated with their supply.
The first criticality analysis
for raw materials was published in 2010 by the Ad-Hoc Working Group on Defining
Critical Raw Materials, a subgroup to the Raw Materials Supply Group, which is
an expert group of the European Commission. 14 critical raw materials were
identified from a candidate list of 41 non-energy, non-food materials. In the
2011 Communication on raw materials (COM (2011)25 of 2 February 2011), the
Commission formally adopted this list and stated that it would continue to
monitor the issue of critical raw materials in order to identify priority
actions. It also committed to undertake a regular review and update of this
list at least every 3 years.
The current review has used the
same methodology, indicators and thresholds as the original 2010 (54 raw
materials instead of 41) criticality assessment at EU level, but with updated
data and a wider range of materials. This enables a side-by-side comparison of
both assessments (2010 and 2013) to understand how the criticality of materials
has changed during this time. In the 2013 exercise 54 non-energy,
non-agricultural materials were analysed. The same quantitative methodology as
in the previous 2010 exercise is applying two criteria - the economic
importance and the supply risk of the selected raw materials. Like in 2010, the
following assessment components have been used:
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Economic importance: this
analysis is achieved by assessing the proportion of each material associated
with industrial megasectors at an EU level. These proportions are then combined
with the megasectors’ gross value added (GVA) to the EU’s GDP. This
total is then scaled according to the total EU GDP to define an overall
economic importance for a material.
-
Supply risk: in order to measure
the supply risk of raw materials, the World Governance Indicator (WGI) was
used. This indicator takes a variety of influences into account such as voice
and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government
effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law or control of
corruption.
The criticality zone is defined
by the same thresholds as in 2010 to ensure comparability of the results. This
extended candidate list includes 7 new abiotic materials and 3 biotic
materials. In addition, greater detail is provided for the rare earth elements
by splitting them into ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ categories.
The overall results of the 2013 criticality assessment are shown below; the
critical raw materials are highlighted in the red shaded criticality zone of
the graph.
Twenty critical raw materials
were identified as critical from the list of fifty-four candidate
materials:
Antimony
|
Beryllium
|
Borates
|
Chromium
|
Cobalt
|
Coking coal
|
Fluorspar
|
Gallium
|
Germanium
|
Indium
|
Magnesite
|
Magnesium
|
Natural
Graphite
|
Niobium
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|
PGMs
|
Phosphate Rock
|
REEs
(Heavy)
|
REEs
(Light)
|
Silicon Metal
|
Tungsten<
/span>
|
|
This 2013 list includes thirteen
of the fourteen materials identified in the previous report, with only tantalum
moving out of the EU critical material list. Six new materials enter the list:
borates, chromium, coking coal, magnesite, phosphate rock and silicon metal.
Three of these are entirely new to the assessment. None of the biotic materials
were classified as critical. Whilst this analysis highlights the criticality of
certain materials from the EU perspective, limitations and uncertainties with
data, and the scope of the assessment should be taken into consideration when
discussing this list. It is worth recalling that all raw materials, even when
not critical, are important for the European economy and therefore not being
critical does not imply that a given raw material and its availability to the
European economy should be neglected. Moreover, the availability of new data
may affect the list in the future; therefore the policy actions should not be
limited to critical raw materials exclusively. In addition, information for
each of the candidate materials is provided by individual material profiles.
Further analysis is provided for the critical raw materials within these
profiles.
Analysis of the global primary
supply of the 54 candidate materials identifies around 90% of global supply
originated from extra-EU sources; this included most of the base, speciality
and precious metals, and rubber. China is the major supplier when these
materials are considered, however many other countries are important suppliers
of specific materials. EU primary supply across all candidate materials is
estimated at around 9%. In the case of the critical raw materials, supply from
the EU sources is even more limited.
A comparison between supply of
the candidate materials and the critical materials is shown below, showing that
supply becomes more concentrated for the critical materials, particularly in
China.
Recommendations of the Ad Hoc Working GroupThe
major producers of the twenty EU critical raw materials are shown below, with
China clearly being the most influential in terms of global supply. Several
other countries have dominant supplies of specific raw materials, such as the
USA (beryllium) and Brazil (niobium). Supply of other materials, for example
the platinum group metals and borates, is more diverse but is still relatively
concentrated.
The Ad Hoc Working Group (AHWG)
recommends:
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To disseminate the CRM study
results and findings, accompanied by an introductory guidance on the intended
purpose of the list.
-
To initiate all the necessary
specific actions to ensure undistorted and reliable access to critical raw
materials given the combination of their economic importance and supply risk,
as well as for non-critical raw materials where appropriate.
-
To promote the outcome of the
study not only across the EU Institution and the Member States where the study
results could be used in relevant policies and initiatives, but also amongst
relevant stakeholder, including manufacturers, designers and waste processors,
who may benefit from it.
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To regularly update the list.
Updating it every three years seems time being appropriate.
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To continue the activities of
the Ad-Hoc Working Group into place. Appointment of additional members from
relevant sectors may be considered, taking into account the
representativeness.
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Keeping the scope on non-energy,
non-agricultural raw materials, to review the list of candidate materials for
the next update ensuring it remains appropriate for the purpose of the
study.
-
To review the quantitative
methodology and carefully consider possible modifications while maintaining
comparability over time.
-
To draw lessons from the CRM
work regarding the assessment of resources and reserves of critical and other
raw materials in the EU. This should, where possible, include the assessment of
EU mineral resources, internal EU flows of raw materials, including secondary
resources such as tailings, waste rocks and spoiling heaps; internal supply,
capacity, imports and exports of different grades of materials; the supply
chain stage materials that are required in the EU; as well as detailed trade
statistics for the raw materials.
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