Billionaire Friedland Says US Must Brand Copper a Critical Metal

By Bloomberg

Jun 23, 2023

image is BloomburgMedia_RWPKW6DWLU6801_25-06-2023_18-22-22_638232480000000000.jpg

Copper wire rod in a storage facility following manufacture at the Uralelectromed Copper Refinery, operated by Ural Mining and Metallurgical Co. (UMMC), in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Russia, on Thursday, May 20, 2021. A rebound in the world’s largest economies as the vaccination against Covid-19 rolls out is stoking demand for metals, food and energy when supplies are still constrained, creating short-term shortages. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire mining investor Robert Friedland said the US government must include copper as critical material under President Joe Biden’s landmark clean energy law.

“It has to be, it’s obvious,” he said in a Bloomberg TV interview with Alix Steel and Guy Johnson. “America hasn’t developed a mine of consequence for 40 years. The mining of copper is absolutely critical.”

WATCH: Ivanhoe Mines founder Robert Friedland discusses the global commodities market.Source: Bloomberg

Friedland, who’s behind the discovery of some of the world’s biggest copper deposits, has long championed the importance of the metal used in everything from wires and pipes to missiles and tanks.

China is a dominant player in the business of processing minerals, refining the majority of nickel, copper, cobalt and other resources key to economic growth and green-energy technologies. With initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act, the US is seeking to curtail global dependence on China as the strategic competition between the two nations increases.

The European Union has already proposed classifying copper and nickel as critical raw materials in landmark legislation designed to bolster supplies, alongside other metals key to the energy transition.

By Thomas Biesheuvel