The 2020 EU Critical Raw Materials List   The European Commission has just published the 2020 EU Critical Raw Materials List. The Commission reviews the list of critical raw materials for the EU every three years screening 83 materials. Economic importance and supply risk are the two main parameters used to determine criticality for the EU. Economic importance looks in detail at the allocation of raw materials to end-uses based on industrial applications. Supply risk looks at the country-level concentration of global production of primary raw materials and sourcing to the EU, the governance of supplier countries, including environmental aspects, the contribution of recycling (i.e. secondary raw materials), substitution, EU import […]

Nickel is one of the most common elements in the earths’ crust. Therefore, general depletion is not likely, however mining of remaining ores with reduced nickel contents, mines in disperse locations and increasing environmental regulations turn nickel mining more challenging. Due to an expected surge in global electric vehicle sales, the demand for Nickel starts to change its production, even though at present the share of battery materials is just around 3-4% of global mine production. Among all the existing Nickel containing ores, only the sulfide ones are suitable to produce battery grade Nickel. One problem concerning batteries is that the demand of Nickel to produce batteries is comparatively low, […]