Diverse voices shaping mining’s future, says Freeport’s Cobb
- 2 December 2024
Bill Cobb wants more people to read Ernest Scheyder’s book, The War Below. “I don't think I’ve read a book like it in my 40-year career,” Freeport-McMoRan’s chief sustainability officer told me ahead of Resourcing Tomorrow 2024 in London.
“I think Ernie’s book is part of what gives me a sense of optimism right now,” Cobb says.
“You get the sense that he’s captured information that allows for meaningful conversations to take place; conversations that are critical to where this sector is trying to go [including] facilitating an energy transition we all think is imperative.”
Reuters journalist Scheyder features in a fireside chat at the major mining conference to talk about themes in his book, released earlier this year, including the wide range of voices influencing conversations and policies shaping mining’s future. Resourcing Tomorrow 2024 is tapping into those voices via a program connecting leaders inside and outside mining’s “echo chamber”.
Cobb, who will speak on a panel focusing on ways the industry can accelerate new metal supply, has addressed several of the same 2024 forums as Scheyder. Copper major Freeport was among the case studies featured in The War Below.
Cobb says the industry is in a race to demonstrate responsible and sustainable mining practices that can also help companies such as Freeport-McMoRan achieve investment returns that unlock the capital needed to bring new critical mineral and metal production to global markets.
Demonstration and acceptance of higher operating, and environmental, social and governance (ESG), standards, can hopefully bring more of mining’s opposing voices to the table to at least countenance discussions about the industry’s primacy in global energy, technology and infrastructure supply chains.
Otherwise, as Scheyder illustrates, the project development constraints that have become increasingly damaging to mining value cases will continue and potentially get worse.
“There is a fundamental assumption here about the diverse stakeholders being willing to work together,” Cobb says.
“Because if we're not then the stalemate kind of continues. And in the United States we know that stalemate goes through the court system.
“I think he’s [Scheyder] done a great service to both the mining sector and civil society in capturing the core issues.
“He has captured the diverse voices … and been purposeful in not saying, here’s what you do next. What he really lays out is the challenge of the diversity; it's really difficult to navigate through those diverse voices to reach consensus.
“It [the book] really gives us a sense of what it’s going to take … Can we find consensus to chart a path forward that doesn't run through the courtrooms?
“The fact that we’re openly talking about it [reflects progress]. I can't remember anything like that when I started in 1979.”
Cobb says technology is pivotal to mining’s operational and ESG shifts.
Freeport CEO Richard Adkerson has talked about mining’s “unconventional moment” where, similar to the US shale gas revolution built on hydraulic fracturing technology, the industry finds a new economic model for creating significant value.
Is mining sitting on the cusp of that disruptive threshold?
Cobb thinks it is.
“We've talked about our Leach to the Last Drop initiative where we've got 38 billion pounds [of copper] primarily in our stockpiles, which had already been mined and placed, and we assumed we couldn't get to them,” he says.
“I would say we’re past the cusp because we've already demonstrated 200 million pounds a year, we are wanting to get to 800 million ... That is right in our backyard.
“We’ve got a potentially disruptive technology, leaching chalcopyrite. If we can figure out a way to start leaching sulphides, getting meaningful recoveries, that's totally disruptive. It's disruptive because you're breaking the milling cycle. You're going to cut back on your energy use, your water use and you're not generating tailings.
“It opens up a completely different ballgame.
“We’re developing technologies with a forward target that on an annualised basis could equal a large-scale copper mine.
“There is also the use of artificial intelligence to help you rethink the entire mining process. That could be disruptive.
“How does technology change the paradigms going forward, helping us rethink what constitutes the mine of the future?
“These are some of the topics we will hear more about at the conference.”
