Recycling is a must for the mining industry, BHP boss says

Rio Tinto in July bought a $US700 million ($1 billion) half-stake in Matalco, a Canadian producer of recycled aluminium products, to develop a joint venture.
Glencore is also a player in recycling, extracting and marketing critical metals such as copper, nickel, cobalt and zinc from end-of-life electronics and lithium-ion batteries. It has recycling facilities in North America, South America and Europe.
AngloAmerican has described “circularity” as a key part of its “journey from mining and metals company to material solutions provider”, and has a pilot project running in the nickel sector.
BHP has taken a more watchful approach, making small strategic investments that appear intended to keep the company connected to the sector and abreast of its evolution.
At its Nickel West operation, BHP is working with Prime Planet Energy & Solutions and Toyota Tsusho Corporation on the potential to recycle battery scrap and used batteries into nickel-bearing products.
It has also worked with US copper cable and wire manufacturer Southwire to track how the metals flow through downstream supply chains.
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But the company’s stated focus remains primary production, even though Mr Henry told the IEA critical minerals summit that new iron ore deposits were “increasingly hard to find, often deeper, and generally smaller”.
This was because “recycling alone won’t offset all the challenges” of supplying the soaring demand for critical metals and minerals to drive the green energy transition.
BHP’s current emphasis is thus on the broader sustainability of its mining operations, rather than on a big move into recycling.
Mr Henry said this had its own challenges, particularly the confusing proliferation of environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards used to benchmark companies.
“We have too many standards for the same ESG dimensions, leading to confusion and dissipated effort. Convergence on this front would be welcome – this would result in more focused effort, for higher positive impact,” he said.
“We need a small set of common standards, upheld by all, and where performance against those standards is a greater determinant of access to capital.”
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Mr Henry also reiterated his concern about the looming shortage of copper – another metal where there is potential for more recycling, with scrap copper already accounting for somewhere between a fifth and a third of the market.
“BHP’s estimate is that under a plausible 1.5 degree scenario, the copper industry could require around $US250 billion in growth capital over the next seven years to 2030. That is over and above sustaining capital,” he said.
“But currently committed growth projects over this period only amount to around $US40 or $US50 billion today. More projects need to be identified, permitted and given the green light by those who are to invest in them.”
Scrap recycling is likely to become an increasing focus in Europe, as the continent scrambles for short-term ways to reduce its dependency on Chinese inputs.
BHP has previously raised the alarm that the scrap metal market could be distorted by protectionist “scrap nationalism”, such as proposed EU rules that would keep its own scrap metals within its borders.
BHP’s economic and commodity outlook report for the first half of 2023 said that “curbing cross-border trade could impact upon how much metal is collected and recovered in natural surplus regions that impose export controls, [because] limiting the commercial optionality of traders and recyclers will reduce the incentive to collect”.

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform.