Paris (AFP)
Europe must give itself the means to organize its sovereignty in metals and minerals, the demand for which will grow with the energy transition, warned Christel Bories, CEO of the French mining group Eramet, on Monday.
“China had a very anticipatory strategy, much more than us. It understood very quickly that metals were going to be the sinews of the energy transition and very quickly it invested in Africa, Latin America, etc. massive way, to get their hands on the deposits, "she noted on BFM Business.
According to her, today "China controls a little more than 50% of nickel mines, 40% of lithium mines, 50% of cobalt mines in the world. And it refines two-thirds of all these minerals at the level global ".
"Other countries, like the United States, are reacting. So Europe must not be too late," she stressed.
"We have no raw materials in Europe, or very little: if we mobilized all our projects, we would perhaps reach 15% of our needs," continued Ms. Bories.
"We will also have to position ourselves on producing countries, but today we have neither the financial tools nor the regulatory tools to do so," she lamented.
"It would take, as the Chinese, the Japanese and the Koreans have done, public funds that invest in raw materials abroad. Today the recovery plans are investing in Europe, we must also invest in materials first outside of Europe, ”she pleaded.
Eramet also relies on recycling metals from end-of-life batteries.
"The great advantage of metals is that they are infinitely recyclable. It is also necessary to have the technologies to recover them and not to degrade them, to be able to transform them back into very pure metals for the batteries", a- she added, specifying that Eramet had a partnership with Suez on the subject.
Eramet is one of the last European mining groups.
According to Ms. Bories, it "represents 10% of the world's nickel" and targets 17-20% in 2030.
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