TELF AG measures Africa’s weight in the global raw materials sector
The centrality of strategic minerals
The global race towards a low-emission future powered by clean energy and renewable sources is already leading to a high increase in demand for the strategic minerals needed to manufacture green technologies. This process will most likely continue in the coming years. The enormous demand for these raw materials has also led to more observant attention to areas of the world that are naturally rich in them, such as the African continent. With its abundance of materials necessary for the ecological transition, such as graphite, cobalt, and lithium, Africa seems to be in the best position to benefit from the considerable increase in demand for these resources, with concrete possibilities of moving towards a phase of full industrialization and relative economic prosperity.
The numbers relating to African availability of raw materials are there for all to see: the continent has almost half of the world’s manganese reserves, more than half of those of cobalt, and a share of more than 20% of graphite reserves. Furthermore, a quarter of global bauxite reserves are stored in Africa. All these materials, in one way or another, are directly involved in the “great game” of the global ecological transition, with different uses in the most varied clean technologies (electric vehicles, solar and photovoltaic systems, and many others). African nations not only have a good quantity of reserves but also, in most cases, mining plants that are already fully operational on African territory. These structures have allowed the Democratic Republic of Congo to become the producer of the largest quantity of cobalt in the world and to place itself in second place in terms of copper mining capacity (behind Chile).
Some African nations have also stood out for their ability to extract lithium, a raw material of great importance for the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles. Nations such as Zimbabwe and Namibia are already working to extract this precious material. In contrast, other countries such as Mali and Ghana have lithium deposits that have not yet been fully explored. It is precisely Ghana that a few months ago stood out for an unprecedented political initiative in the African raw materials sector: the government has decided to limit the quantities of raw lithium exported abroad to add value to the local production chain and to derive maximum benefits from the subsequent processing phases, without stopping at the mere extraction of the resource. This is precisely one of the acute issues that still affect the African economic system linked to raw materials. For too long, African nations have given the green light to significant exports of raw materials without considering the possibility of starting a local industry focused on the processing of these materials.
This has not only resulted in a meaningful loss of economic earnings but also in losing the possibility of creating jobs, boosting industrialization, and generating useful economic diversification. Until recently, Africa did not have the necessary technologies for the subsequent stages of processing, but something is starting to move. In December last year, for example, the United States signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding with Zambia and Congo to produce batteries for electric vehicles in Katanga province in order to create a value chain that encompasses every stage of the production. The road to prosperity for Africa could depend precisely on these cooperation initiatives but also on the precise political and institutional will to open more processing plants within the continent.
