Brand Queensland carries mining cred

Stand by Queensland. Soon, you’ll be seeing a lot of interest from some of the world’s largest companies wanting to be associated with Queensland minerals because it has the right brand. This prediction comes from the Queensland Resources Council (QRC), based on the huge volume of minerals needed to support a low-emissions economy. “Recent reports from Bloomberg and the International Energy Agency indicate demand for critical and new economy minerals including copper is exponential,” QRC policy director, economics Andrew Barger said. Related: Queensland ready for boom Mark II “These reports provide an order of magnitude around the extraordinary uptake projected in electric vehicles globally and have tracked that in terms of the new supply of minerals the world will need. “From a baseline of today, they’ve posed the question - how much of these minerals will be going into electric vehicles over the next 10 years? “The answer is anywhere up to 14 times more than currently, which is an extraordinary growth in demand. “One copper producer has colourfully described the global outlook for copper as ‘psychedelic’.” Mr Barger said some producers were starting to think about every link of their supply chain, which presented an opportunity for the industry to promote Queensland minerals as a ‘brand’ companies would want to be associated with. “You’re starting to see companies like Toyota, BMW, Apple and Tesla wanting to invest in production chains, not just the end product,” he said. ”They're not just wanting a bucket of lithium, or a handful of aluminium, they want to know where it's come from and if the processes involved in providing that mineral are sustainable, regulated and ethical. “Ethical sourcing has joined sovereign risk and profit as baseline values for multinational consumer brands. “There's a premium to be achieved on providence. If you know where the minerals come from, and the producer has the right regulatory and environmental credentials, you can then sell that story to your customers. “If you're looking at, say, cobalt from Queensland, you know the workers are being paid a fair wage, environmental protections are in place, the operation has a rehabilitation plan and water is being managed properly. “That’s a very different situation to buying the same commodity from somewhere like Angola.” Mr Barger said in Queensland, successful mining operations had consistently delivered positive outcomes, which had been taken for granted by customers until recently. “We may not be far away from these outcomes being valued and hopefully attracting a price premium,” he said. “The brand value for customers is confidence in how Queensland minerals are produced. “They want to know what was the impact on the land? Did the company deal properly with native title holders? Have landholders been compensated? Has the process been managed well? “The good news is Queensland's got a reputation for doing things properly. “Our positive reputation and other key values put Queensland in prime position to lead a new era of mineral processing, including in areas where we already have processing infrastructure in place for commodities such as aluminium, copper and zinc. “Combine that infrastructure with new sources of cheap electricity, and you’ve immediately made yourself more attractive to global investors. “Queensland should probably be doing more value-adding to our mineral resources, given how quickly we’re moving towards investing in renewable energy generation.” Mr Barger said as Queensland’s share of renewable energy grew, there was value to the state economy in having large sources of energy demand from smelters and refineries, which helped balance electricity supply for the whole state. “If you fast-forward a couple of years to the projected enormous production of renewable energy at fairly low prices in Queensland, there’s a potential for a win-win situation," he said. “At home in Queensland, we’ll see value from the production of refined products like aluminium because they stabilise our electricity transmission system, and globally these ‘green’ commodities are more highly valued by our global customers because of their low emissions.“We're already seeing products coming out of hydro-electric aluminium plants starting to attract a price premium. “The trick for Queensland is how do we best manage our energy transition to capture those ‘green’ premiums here?”

Brand Queensland carries mining cred

Industry Queensland

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