The Future Minerals Forum 2025 took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 14 to 16 January. In its fourth year, the Forum brings together governments, mining companies, financing organisations and a wide range of other stakeholders from across the mining value chain to consider and shape the future supply of metals and minerals. Representing Anglo American at the Forum were Duncan Wanblad, Chief Executive, Alison Atkinson, Projects & Development Director, Richard Price, Legal & Corporate Affairs Director, Matt Walker, CEO of our Marketing business, and Craig Miller, CEO of our PGMs business, each with a programme of meetings with stakeholders relevant to their respective portfolios.
With more than 20,000 participants spanning the entire globe – east and west, north and south – and senior participation from the host government of Saudi Arabia, the Forum is designed to serve as a catalyst for global investment in mining, including in relation to Saudi Arabia’s own economic diversification priorities.
On Wednesday, 15 January, Duncan participated in a panel discussion focused on how resource depletion, mineral demand and affordability are placing the energy transition at risk, how the mining sector can allocate capital most efficiently and what financing, permitting and other enablers are required to overcome these challenges.
In the panel discussion, Duncan said: “It is not a demand problem. There are many drivers of demand for some of these very critical minerals, like copper. What it really is, is a supply problem, and probably not so much an issue of the fact there are no minerals in the ground – there are. But the time that it takes to bring these minerals into production is getting longer and longer, and what it takes to get them into production is becoming more and more complicated.”
To overcome these challenges, Duncan suggested that there will need to be systemic solutions at a global scale, without which it will be very difficult to deploy the vast amount of capital required to bring these mining projects online in a timely manner.
In a separate panel discussion on the role of new technologies in transforming mining, Alison reflected on how societal expectations around mining have increased, and how Anglo American is addressing the mining industry’s trust deficit through our integrated approach to sustainability and innovation, enabling us to build mines with a much smaller physical and societal footprint.
Richard and Alison also participated in a number of round table discussions, with Richard debating potential strategies to enable critical infrastructure financing in higher-risk, emerging market countries by leveraging inter-government collaboration and numerous other de-risking mechanisms.
Key themes in these discussions included the idea of ‘patient capital’ and how the behaviour of commodity prices in the short term is at odds with the long-term mindset required to develop mines, the use of innovative partnership models to share risk, and how the mining industry can streamline permitting through increased transparency and collaboration.
