Roundup of the FT Mining Summit 2023

Anglo American participated in the Financial Times Live’s Mining Summit 2023 in London on 5 and 6 October, a crucial platform bringing together thought leaders and subject matter experts from across the mining industry to discuss and collaborate on this year’s theme, ‘minerals of the future’.

Group Head of Strategy, Paul Gait participated in the opening panel alongside Codelco Chairman, Maximo Pacheco and Freeport McMoRan President, Kathleen Quirk exploring market balance in a restricted supply environment. Here, Paul highlighted mining’s role in producing supply to deliver higher standards of living, development and decarbonisation, and explained the “indefinite” pipeline required for future-enabling metals like copper.

“As much as the mining industry can generate is essentially the demand that will be there for this metal,” Paul said.

“For as long as there is an aspiration for a higher standard of living, for development and for a decarbonised world, there will be demand, in a trend sense, for copper.”

To meet these wants and needs from modern society also depended on sufficient capital flows for industries such as mining, Paul explained: “Our stated preference is clearly for a renewable future, a sustainable future and a better world for our children. That's where we are directing capital.”

During a keynote interview with the Financial Times’ Commodities Correspondent Harry Dempsey, Anglo American Chief Executive Duncan Wanblad outlined the key demand themes centred on the need to supply future-enabling metals and minerals not only for the energy transition, but also for the growing middle classes and associated expectations around better quality of living and food security.

“We still need to equate the living standards between the developing nations and the developed nations – the first of the UN sustainability development goals is centered around eradicating poverty at a global scale,” Duncan said.

“Then you have the issue around the quantity of arable land that's available today to provide food for the current population alone, which is dwindling,” he added. “The world’s population is growing and we’re going to have 2 billion more people on the planet by 2050 than exists today”.

Anglo American is playing a pivotal role in addressing the pressing demand challenges of a growing global population through its Woodsmith polyhalite project in North Yorkshire. On the second day of the event CEO of Crop Nutrients, Tom McCulley, participated in a panel with ADM Fertilizer’s Director of Fertilizer Sales Brian Flaska, CEO of the International Fertilizer Association Alzbeta Klein and Norge Mining Founder Michael Wurmer, where he explained how the project’s mined polyhalite product project – known as POLY4 - will help feed more people without harming the planet.

Likening the product to a “multi-vitamin”, Tom explained that the naturally occurring, low-carbon and organic product POLY4 stands out as the first significant advancement in bulk fertilisers in 75 years.

“Every year I go to the doctor, I eat more fruit, I eat more vegetables, and I still need to take more vitamin D and more vitamin C,” Tom explained. “It makes no sense, and that's exactly why we have to do it. That’s the change that we're going to bring to the industry. The nutrients that are required for the soil are all in our product, POLY4.”