Editorial | Opportunity for red mud

Hopefully, Floyd Green, Jamaica’s mining minister, is paying attention to, and thinking strategically about, the latest in the tit for tat between the United States and China over access to resources that are critical to their high-technology industries.

It is Mr Green’s job to see the potential in this scrap for advancing Jamaica’s economic and industrial development. In which event, Mr Green should already be in discussions with Robert Stewart’s mineral exploration outfit, Geophysx, on accelerating its research into extracting rare earth elements (REEs) from red mud, the effluent left when bauxite is refined to alumina.

That, however, should not be the full extent of the project. Geophysx should be encouraged to extend its efforts to finding and extracting gallium from the effluent, on which there has already been substantial work. Perhaps the Government should think of establishing a strategic partnership with Geophysx and other domestic research institutions.

LICENSING REGIME

Recently, China, which produces over 90 per cent of the stuff, announced that it will next month introduce export restrictions on gallium. It will do the same with germanium – another of those prized elements widely used in the manufacture of semiconductors, communication equipment and a host of other technological applications – of which it produces around 60 per cent of the world’s supply.

Beijing says that it is imposing the licensing regime – not a ban – on the export of the minerals, and a slew of products made from them, because of national security concerns. The real reason is more likely to be a retaliation for the ban the United States (US) has imposed – and pressured its allies to follow – on the export of sophisticated semiconductor imaging and manufacturing equipment to China.

Beijing sees these moves as an effort by the US to contain China’s economic and technological advance and its continued emergence as a global competitor to the United States. Some analysts argue that should the United States continue to strangulate the supply of advanced chip-design and manufacturing systems to China, Beijing might escalate its response with calibrated movements on the lever it is now engaging. That could see a move to restricting the export of rare earth elements, which are essential to devices ranging from mobile phones and batteries for electric vehicles to satellites and military equipment. The restrictions could eventually deepen to include bans on a raft of other minerals that are critical to modern industries, of which China is a large supplier.

While it would hurt the West, such action would not be without risk to a still export-dependent China. However, the possibility is not lost on the West. The United States has been encouraging its partners to expand the mining of critical minerals as part of a strategic remodelling of the global supply chains away from a reliance on China.

Jamaica ought to be careful not to be drawn into a new Cold War and being a party to the contain-China sentiment. It must, however, be aware of, and where possible exploit, opportunities to expand its economic growth and development.

For instance, while gallium and germanium are available by other means, they are more generally derived from the mining or production of other metals or minerals. Gallium, for example, is a by-product of the mining of zinc and the production of alumina. Germanium may also be derived from zinc mining or separated from brown coal.

The possibilities for Jamaica, a global producer of bauxite, are therefore obvious.

NATIONAL PROJECT

Bauxite is refined into alumina, which, in turn, is smelted into aluminium. Indeed, it is China’s big production capacity in alumina and aluminium that gives it its lock on the global gallium market.

Jamaica not only has alumina refineries, but large storage ponds with red effluent left from that process. In some cases, the red mud is dried and stacked.

Technologies exist to extract REEs from bauxite waste, but up to now they have not proven sufficiently efficient to displace or compete with the direct mining of these minerals. Notwithstanding the seemingly less-than-propitious outcome of an effort a dozen years ago by the Jamaica Bauxite Institute and Japan’s Nippon Light Metals to advance these technologies, Mr Stewart’s Geophysx apparently believes that it and its partners may be on to a breakthrough. We hope they are. At the very least, the global geopolitical environment supports that they pursue their effort. But they should also bring gallium into the mix.

In this context, maybe Minister Green should pull a group of stakeholders together to have a hard look at the advantages and pitfalls, and its potential as a national project.

The latest geopolitical developments strengthen this newspaper’s standing proposal that Jamaica declares in law that secondary minerals found in bauxite (including in its residue after processing) inheres to the State when the Government issues exploration, mining and refining licences. This must therefore be taken into account with respect to royalties and other levies charged for the extraction of bauxite, especially when mined for export.