Uncovering the key determinants on the disruption of ores supply

Abstract

Sustainable supply of different ores is essential for our economic system to move toward low carbon transition. However, few studies focus on uncovering the key determinants on the supply disruption of such ores. This study investigates the key determinants that influenced the disruption of 18 types of ores’ production from 2010 to 2022 through the combination of web crawler, AI-text classification and manual processing methods. Results show that determinants such as politics, natural disasters, strikes and protests, economy, and energy, play crucial roles. Specifically, these determinants have different impacts in different countries and therefore require different policy designs, such as environmental protection policy (in China influencing Zinc, Tungsten, Molybdenum, and Iron), banning resource export (in Indonesia influencing Nickel and Tin), domestic risks (in Democratic Republic of Congo influencing Copper and Cobalt), extreme climate disasters (in Australia—influencing Iron, Aluminum, and Gold, and in Chile—influencing Copper and Lithium), natural disaster (in South Africa—influencing Chromium, Manganese, Platinum, Gold, and Fe, and in Chile—influencing Copper and Lithium), and strike and protests (in Peru—influencing Copper, Silver, and Zinc, and in South Africa—influencing Platinum and Gold). These findings can help stakeholders better prepare their strategies to improve the overall resilience of the entire ores supply chain and facilitate the global low carbon transition. Several policy recommendations are then proposed to improve sustainable supply of key minerals.