One of the world’s senior mining leaders has called on the sector to speed up innovation or risk being marginalised by groups that spend more on research.
Mark Cutifani, Anglo American chief executive, said research and development in mining was lagging behind the oil and gas sector at a time when there was an urgent need for larger and better deposits of many metals and minerals.
In 10 years the world would “have to pay to move twice the amount of waste to get the same minerals to market”, he said. “We need to do it differently. We need a better way. We need to innovate.”
Innovation in oil and gas has transformed the energy landscape in the US, with fracking and horizontal drilling unlocking vast reservoirs of shale gas previously considered uneconomic to develop. By contrast innovation in mining has been incremental. Many methods have changed little except for the size of equipment used.
“Our industry is damned by the fact that our spending on innovation, research and development is one-10th that of the petroleum industry,” Mr Cutifani said.