By Yusuf Khan


Senior executives within mining and trading companies have called for policy certainty when it comes to sourcing minerals needed for the energy transition to help ensure future supply of goods like copper, lithium and cobalt.

Speaking as part of a panel during the World Economic Forum in Davos, BHP Group Ltd. Chief Executive Mike Henry pushed for "policy certainty" and the removal of red tape around mining and resourcing critical minerals to help miners, traders and other participants plan and invest in new projects to help supply the energy transition.

Mr. Henry said that in the past, setting up a new mine would take roughly 10 years, but this has now extended to 20-30 years because of a lack of clarity around policy.

"Not only is the world going to need a lot more copper, cobalt, lithium in the coming years but we're coming into a position of also needing to offset declining supply [from existing sources]," Mr. Henry said.

He added that if there is a willingness to move faster on key projects, then supply of key resources can be upped faster, referring to Germany's speed in installing a new liquefied natural gas supply in response to dwindling supply from Russia.

"The capital is there, so is the willingness to invest but conditions have to be improved to speed up [development]," he said.

Jeremy Weir, chief executive of Trafigura Group Pte. Ltd., added that supply chains post-pandemic were much less efficient and much more fragmented, giving the example of the shipping crisis seen in 2020.

"You don't pick where resources are. They can be in challenging environments," Mr. Weir said. He added that it would be important to engage with local populations when accessing new resources, which would likely come from harder to extract regions.

"You cannot disenfranchise those people to get those resources," he said.


Write to Yusuf Khan at yusuf.khan@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-17-23 1206ET