Mineral resources are the basis of national economic development and an important guarantee for national political and military security. Security issues in this domain have become increasingly prominent. From the perspective of mineral resource safety, influencing factors, evaluation systems, methods, security strategies and legal policy, here we tease out current mineral resource safety research. This review shows that mineral resource security is a sustainable concept, continuously expanding and deepening with development. It not only involves economic security, but also involves environmental sustainability, social security and international security. Evaluation indicators have been gradually enriched from time to time, changing from a single economic indicator to an evaluation system covering environmental indicators, geographical and political indicators. The state pays more attention to all aspects of mineral resource exploitation and use, and special laws and policies are continuously improving. To ensure comprehensive national security, the government formulates the strategy for safeguarding mineral resources based on the characteristics of economic development and resource endowment. The evaluation method has changed from qualitative to quantitative. However, it also has the following shortcomings: the establishment and decomposition of some evaluation indicators lack systematicity and dynamism and this is difficult to quantify. The results of the evaluation and accuracy of the predicted models need to be resolved. The overlap between legal policies of different levels and departments has caused a chaotic management system. In the future, the study of mineral resource security theoretical system, quantitative and dynamic analysis, international trade rules, major strategic impact and legal policy should be strengthened to regulate mineral resource transactions and ensure the safety of mineral resources.
In many regions in China, energy shortages (e.g. coal, oil, gas and electricity) are common. There are signs that regional energy security remains an important issue in the development of China and cannot be ignored. Here, we construct a corresponding index system of regional energy security from four aspects: regional energy supply, use, economic and environmental safety in China. The weight of the index is determined by the entropy method, overcoming the subjectivity of the traditional weighting method, and the TOPSIS evaluation method is used to quantitatively evaluate energy security of provinces. The results show that China’s regional energy security is generally low. The energy security value is higher than the national average for only Shanxi, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and six other provinces, accounting for 30% of provinces. The remaining 21 provinces have lower than average energy security. Energy security in China shows a gradual decrease from the northwest to southeast. In northwest provinces, energy reserves are abundant and energy consumption is relatively low, resulting in high energy security. Energy savings in the eastern and central provinces are scarce and energy consumption is huge, leading to low energy security. Several policy recommendations are discussed, including optimizing energy structure and increasing diversification of energy to improve supply stability, increasing research investment and improving energy efficiency, reducing and diversifying energy consumption, paying attention to environmental protection investment and lessening environmental pollution.
Complex and unpredictable emergencies impose a significant impact on national metal resource security. Here, we analyzed the influence mechanism of emergencies on national metal resource security based on the pressure-state-response (PSR) model from an unconventional security perspective. The system dynamics model taking copper as an example was carried out to explore the influence degree and conduction path of different types of emergencies on metal resource security. We found that natural disasters, geopolitics, resource nationalism, major mining accidents and environmental pollution have a direct impact on the price of metal resources. When a 20%, 50% and 100% reduction during the period of event occurred in imports occurred due to such emergencies, the copper price rose immediately, compared to the benchmark situation, to the strongest gain of 3. 55%, 10. 00%, and 27. 30% respectively. Prices gradually fell back to baseline and the effects lasted a long time. However, the speculative behavior of financial markets indirectly affected the price through speculative demand. When the speculations result in a 20% and 50% reduction in the amount of positions during the event, copper prices fall immediately to their greatest level of 1. 201% and 3. 150% with rapid rebound to benchmark. On the contrary, if speculation positions increase by 20% and 50%, copper prices immediately rise to the maximum increase of 1. 132% and 2. 716%. Copper prices decline to baseline level rapidly. We conclude by proposing strategic adjustments to deal with emergencies in metal resources to provide a scientific basis for safeguarding national metal resource security.
The aluminum industry is important to national economy development in China. Bauxite is the source of the aluminum industrial chain and its supply security directly affects the sustainable development of this industry. With China’s rapid industrialization and urbanization, the demand for bauxite has skyrocketed. Understanding the global trade in bauxite can help China recognize the market situation and make relevant judgments. This study described the recent import and export status of bauxite in China from 1992 to 2015, and calculated the net import reliance of China’s bauxite based on data from UN Comtrade. We analyzed the import market structure of bauxite imported into China using the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI). Last we combined the net import reliance and market concentration to build a resource supply security matrix to assess the supply security situation in China. We found that the total net import and export of bauxite measured by weight and monetary value increased from 1992 to 2015, and that growth was remarkable from 2004. The net import reliance of China’s bauxite increased from 1992 to 2007, and then began to stabilize. Since 2007, China’s import market concentration has shown a decreased trend, demonstrating that the security of China’s bauxite supply has improved in recent years. These findings indicate that China should expand the overseas resource market, strengthen its cooperation with other countries to reduce the risk of possible bauxite shortages, and balance the market share among importing countries of bauxite. This framework is designed not only for bauxite, but also for other kinds of materials important to China.
Because of endowment constraints in China’s domestic iron ore resources, China is highly dependent on iron ore imports. This situation will continue for a long time. In order to secure the supply of iron ore resources in China, research has emphasised Chinese iron ore resource supply and demand, international trade or pricing mechanism and their influence, and analysed iron ore resource supply risk. However, comprehensive analysis of supply and demand, trade and the pricing mechanism at the same time is uncommon, and this has resulted in a lack of multi-dimensional measures for the integrated management of iron ore supply risk in China. Here, we applied the BGR-VW method and the latest data set for China’s iron ore resources from 2000 to 2015, to comprehensively evaluate iron ore resource supply risk from five aspects: the current market risk, resource risk, political risk, market power and the future trend of supply and demand. We found that China’s iron ore resource supply risk mainly exists in resource risk and political risk, and the comprehensive level of risk is in a state of tension. We discuss comprehensive management measures for iron ore resource supply risk considering multidimensional bodies including the global level, regional level and national level, and from each dimension propose reasonable suggestions respectively in order to realize the sustainable supply of iron ore resources in China.
Chromium is an important raw material in the production of stainless steel. Given China’s scarce mineral resources, the safety of chromium resource supply has a bearing on the steady development of the stainless steel industry. It is essential to determine the main risks and risk levels when assessing current supply risks of chromium resources in China. Here, we selected appropriate indicators from three the aspects of resource, market and politics and collected data on reserves, production, consumption, international trade, price, rate of recovery and World Governance Index from 2000 to 2016. We introduce the pattern of quantitative classified evaluation to assess supply risks using the method of multi index comprehensive evaluation. We found that the supply risks mainly include serious shortage of China’s chromium resources, increasing degree of dependence on foreign trade, low rates of recovery, weak market power, a high import concentration and great geostrategic risk. Enterprises should be promoted to invest and develop overseas resources as a high priority. It is necessary to increase the rate of recovery of chromium waste materials and strengthen the melting technology of stainless steel scraps. The central government should establish a reserve system of chromium resources to stabilize market expectations and improve the support capacity of chromium resources.
Quantitative characterization of the economic process of copper exploration is valuable and practical in predicting copper exploration trends and policy-making in resource governance. Here, we analyzed the driving mechanisms of economic development in copper exploration from four main segments: the effect of economic development on copper consumption; the effect of copper demand and supply on copper prices; the effect of copper price variation on copper extraction; and the effect of copper extraction on copper exploration. Copper consumption was closely related to the level of national industrialization, industrial shifts globally and changes in industrial structure will have profound impacts on copper consumption in China. Fluctuations in medium and long-term copper prices showed cyclic changes, subjected to changes in copper demand and supply. Each surge in copper pricing could be attributed to the initiation and advancement of regional industrialization. The timing of the next surge in copper pricing will depend on countries that initiated their industrialization after China. Mine copper production is lagging copper consumption and prices, and copper prices obviously effect investments, costs, and benefits of mine enterprises. The returns from copper exploration were subjected to copper extraction and development, and influencers included copper prices, profit of copper mining, copper resources and reserves. Copper exploration is a high-risk activity in the mining market. An investment-friendly environment, stability of policy, and transparency are essential for the development of copper exploration in any country.
In recent years developed countries implemented the so-called re-industrialization strategy to revitalize their manufacturing industries. As new rounds of technological revolution and industrial revolution boom, green, intelligent and service-oriented industrial transformation will have a profound impact on the total amount and structure of mineral resource consumption. Therefore, it is of great significance to study global and Chinese trends for the total amount, structure and influencing factors of future mineral resource consumption. Based on analysis of the relationship industrialization process and the relationship between mineral resource consumption and industrial upgrading, we organise existing research into three aspects: the influence of the consumption of mineral resources on the evolution of industrial structure; the effect of industrialization on the total consumption and structure of mineral resources; and related research methods. Our review found that current research has paid less enough attention to key rare metal consumption which mainly supports the development of strategic emerging industries, while ignoring the impact of technological innovation and environmental protection on the consumption of mineral resources. In light of different industrialization pathways between China and developed countries, we should intensify the exploration of consumption law for mineral resources of big backward industrialized countries; accurately characterize the Material Kuznets Curve; and scientifically judge and reveal the impact of green development on the consumption structure of mineral resources. These suggestions will provide theoretical and empirical support for the strategic adjustment of exploitation and utilization of mineral resources.
Empirical research on oil demand forecasting has received increasing attention spanning different models and estimation methods. There are various defects in current methods, such as limited applicability, large error and failure to reflect the internal relationship between oil consumption and economic development, economic structure and so on. Based on the S-curve model of end-use energy consumption in the transport sector, a method of oil demand forecasting is constructed. Here, we predict oil demand in 5 types of countries at different stages of development and typical countries in the next 20 years after national classification. The results show a sharp slowdown in global oil demand growth and a possible peak before 2040 of 5.2 billion tons. Oil demand has shown a downward trend as a whole in post industrialized countries represented by the USA and UK. A trend of first increasing and then decreasing in late industrialized countries was found for Russia and middle industrialized countries such as China, when peaks appear around 2025 and 2030 respectively. Demand for oil in other types of countries continues to grow. The trend of first increasing and then falling in global oil demand is affected by improvements in vehicle energy efficiency, the development of electric vehicles and restriction in carbon emission reduction. This will result in profound changes in the patterns of global oil supply and demand, and geopolitics.
China's economy has entered a new normal and industrial organizations are facing major transformation. Consumption of mineral resources will continue to grow and varieties are more diverse, making mineral resource management more complex. How changes in industrial structure affect the demand of mineral resources is an important scientific problem. Two threshold models are constructed here: (1) a Panel threshold regression model of 26 countries was constructed using data for iron ore consumption and industrial structure in 26 countries; and (2) a threshold model between six kinds of metal minerals and industrial structure, including iron ore, aluminum, copper, lead, tin and zinc, was constructed using Chinese data. We found that there are remarkable multiple mechanisms between changes in industrial structure and demands for mineral resources, which has changed the main factors of mineral resource demand in two different mechanisms. With continuous evolution of industrial institutions to high technology industries, the demand for mineral resources has also shifted from traditional mineral resources to rare minerals. China metal resource consumption appears at an inflection point echelon evolution. There are multi threshold effects between bulk mineral resources and the second industry. Some threshold effects between rare minerals and secondary industry has also appeared. China is now in the second stage of mineral resource demand. The threshold between bulk mineral industry and high technology industry has appeared. The threshold between rare metal and high technology industries has not yet arrived.
The development of the resource recycling industry can alleviate the dual constraints of resource shortages and environmental pollution. To promote the development of this industry, the Chinese government has formulated a series of industrial policies and revised and adjusted the policy priorities according to the characteristics of the resource recycling industry. Policies are in the process of continuous development and evolution. Further research on the evolution characteristics of the resource recycling industry is of great significance for accurately grasping key points and development trends, exploring the internal logic of policy evolution, and promoting the optimization and perfection of policy. However, few studies have been carried out in this field. Based on the systemic collection of resource recycling industry policies issued by the Chinese Central Government and related departments from 1978 to 2016, we conducted co-words analysis and social network analysis for 172 policy texts from four dimensions: policy theme, recycling objects, industry chain links and policy instruments. We found that the historical evolution of China’s resource recycling industry policies has experienced four stages: exploratory stage (1978—2002), preliminary formation stage (2003—2008), rapidly growing stage (2009—2011), and strategic deepening stage (2012 onward). The evolution of industrial policy has a certain regularity. Policy themes have evolved from macro to specific; recycling objects have evolved from industrial waste to production and living waste; industry chain links have evolved from recycling to the whole industrial chain; and policy instruments have evolved from a single type to the complex type. The influencers of industrial policy evolution are complex and changeable. The external macro environment and industry characteristics all impact the evolution of China’s resource recycling industry policy.
During the period of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, much attention has been paid to the development of recycled resources. The relationship between this industry and other industries will be increasingly related, and impact on the national economy will increase. However, there is relatively little research available on this topic. Here, based on input-output tables of 135 and 139 sectors in 2007 and 2012 we calculated a series of coefficients for the industrial correlation degree, spread effect and macroeconomic effect, and analyzed the correlation and macroeconomic effects of the recycled resources industry. We found that forward association of the recycled resources industry is greater than backward association, indicating the supporting role of the recycled resources industry to downstream industries (e.g. rolling of steel, manufacture of paper and paper products) is greater than to upstream industries (e.g. manufacture of plastic, rolling of non-ferrous metals). The sensitivity coefficient of the recycled resources industry is greater than its influence coefficient which shows that the stimulating effect from national economic development to the recycled resources industry is greater than the promoting effect from the recycled resources industry to national economic development. The investment effect of the recycled resources industry is strong, the employment and export effects are weak, and the consumption effect is zero. From 2007 to 2012, the industrial associations and macroeconomic effects of recycled resources industry have both improved. The future of the recycled resources industry has a good momentum of development and in addition to its significant environmental benefits, it has strong economic benefits.
High-tech minerals are key raw materials in national strategic emerging industries; waste mobile phones contain a variety of high-tech minerals. With rapid economic development mobile phones have become one of the most common electronic devices. China became the largest producer and consumer of mobile phones in 2004, and a large volume of waste mobile phones are generated annually. Although current research has focused on the estimation of waste mobile phones, most studies have neglected the influence of ‘smuggled mobile phones’ and ‘shanzhai mobile phones’. Studies have only considered mobile phones as an integral subject and ignored differences between distinct types of mobile phones and their contained materials. This leads to a lack of advanced knowledge in high-tech minerals in waste mobile phones in terms of the type availability and scale availability. Here, we adopted a dynamic material flow method to calculate the amount of waste mobile phones and social stock containing high-tech minerals based on the differentiation of feature phones and smartphones. We found that from 1987 to 2016, the total amount of waste mobile phones in China exceeded 3.33 billion units. From 1987 to 2016, the total social stock of various high-tech urban minerals contained in China, overall waste mobile phones, exceeded 15.31 thousand tons. This is influenced by various factors, the future stock availability of high tech minerals in waste mobile phones will confront significant changes in terms of variety, grade, scale and mineralization speed. In conclusion, we put forward suggestions for the effective and efficient exploitation of high-tech urban minerals to ensure a sustainable supply of high-tech minerals in China.
Resource recycling processes contain a subsystem with interactions between the three dimensions of coupling allocation of primary and secondary resources, responsibility coordination of stakeholders in forward and reverse supply chains, and trans-boundary transfer of hidden resource and environmental responsibilities between regions. Overlap or lack of responsibly appears at the intersection of these three management dimensions and a policy system for recycling resources is needed. From a theoretical perspective we analyzed external differences for resources and environments in various dimensions and explored why the effects of trans-dimensional policies are strongly correlated. Taking the example of copper resources in waste electrical and electronic equipment, we constructed a reduction effect accounting model of resource recycling and set four trans-dimensional policy scenarios: resources tax and environmental tax reform of the raw and secondary resources, application of extended producer responsibility system, promotion of clean development mechanism, and strict entry barriers of imported waste. We simulated the impact effect of resource recycling process on resource deduction and emission reduction of waste water and gas, and constructed a trans-dimensional policy mix scenario. We found that combined application of various dimensional policies achieves incentive compatibility and a trans-dimensional policy mix scenario reaches a better effect. Compared to the baseline scenario, this scenario will increase 91.06% copper resource reduction effects and improve the emission reduction of waste water and gas by eight times from 2010 to 2030. In the resource dimension, the combined application of compulsory, market and authentication methods should be promoted to improve the use ratio of secondary resources. In the supply chain dimension, the resource value, residual functional value and potential information value contained in waste products should be fully excavated to construct a circular business system. In the regional dimension, the comparative advantages of manufacturing power should be utilized to improve China’s voice in resource recycling.
The “China-raw materials” and “China-rare earths” cases urge the Chinese government to adopt resource and environmental policies that are WTO-consistent and effective, promoting the internalization of external costs in the process of exploiting metal minerals. However, the existing research only considered the intergenerational external cost when evaluating the alternative policies for tariffs, and the related parameters were given exogenously when employ tax transfer model to evaluate the substitution effect of resource tax on tariffs. As a kind of strategic mineral resource, rare earth minerals are selected as the research object. The theoretical tax range of the external costs (including intergenerational cost and environmental cost) of rare earth from the perspective of whole life cycle is estimated to be 28.5%-48.0%. Further, the transformed Lerner and SMR model are employed to estimate the market power of the upstream and downstream enterprises for three different periods. The market powers of the upstream enterprises in the three periods are 1.0, 0.8 and 1.2, respectively, and those of the downstream enterprises are 0.1, 0.2 and 0.4, respectively. Through internalizing the external costs and market power into the tax transfer model, we find that the transmission mechanism and equivalent substitution of intergenerational and environmental external costs, and environmental protection tax rate are related to the market power of rare earth export enterprises, supply elasticity of the upstream enterprises and demand elasticity of the foreign enterprises. This paper provides theoretical basis for the government to formulate more compliance resources policy and environmental policy. Moreover, it sets up an analytical paradigm for the other strategic mineral resources.
Based on the Meta-frontier DEA method, here we calculated the financial support efficiency and compared various mechanisms for efficiency loss intensity, including internal governance, industry environment and ownership. The losses can be attributed to internal governance, industry environment and ownership factors. These results mainly come from metal-listed companies in China from 2011 to 2016. We found that although the metal industry in China is not prosperous, the most important constraint is internal governance. Even though industry and ownership are different, the focus on improving financial support efficiency is still to improve internal governance. The importance of ownership and industry environments cannot be ignored. The improvement of industry efficiency and ownership efficiency has a positive effect on financial support efficiency. The financial support efficiency will be higher, if industry efficiency and ownership efficiency can be improved. Compared with private enterprise, state-owned enterprises are more constrained in terms of internal governance, industrial environment and ownership. This means that state-owned enterprises have more serious problems such as principal-agent and market dependence. Industry differences in internal governance efficiency will be narrowed because of the enhancement of industry contacts and the knowledge barrier will be smaller as the industry coupling works better. Industry differences in internal governance efficiency will be weakened because of diffusion of knowledge. On the basis of theoretical mechanisms, we build an index system, which gives theoretical and practical value to financial support efficiency.
In recent years, the prices of metals based on the future market have frequently and drastically fluctuated, directly affecting the stability of China’s industrial economic system. Financial attributes are considered the main reason for drastic fluctuations in international copper prices in the short term. Under this background, exploring whether financial factors affect the volatility of international copper prices from the perspective of financialization is of great significance to safeguarding the stable operation of China's industrial system and national resource security. We divided LME copper prices from 2000 to 2014 into seven stages based on the ICSS method, and used the PLS method to test the impact of six major financial factors on international copper price fluctuations at different stages. We found that the dollar index has the largest explanatory power over fluctuation of copper prices. The explanation for the change in the price of copper is strongest for the price of gold in the period when the price of copper rises sharply, but it reflects market information in the change in the value of the dollar. The S&P500 Index for copper prices has an obvious supportive role, reflecting the financialization characteristic of international copper markets. At a certain level, speculative behavior leads to dramatic fluctuations in international copper prices, but does not change the intrinsic function of the futures market. We suggest that internationalization of the Chinese Yuan should be used to restrain the impact of the US Dollar; a mining financial strategy should be constructed to prevent the risk of price volatility under over-financialization; and speculation should be treated rationally to prevent abnormal fluctuation.
The development and utilization of mineral resources have promoted economic development in China and caused tremendous damage to the ecological environment. The issue of ecological compensation should be considered in the construction of revenue distribution mechanisms during mineral resource development. It analyzed stakeholders’ game behavior during mineral resource development through case studies and applied the classic model of cooperative game - Shapley value on revenues distribution of mineral resources development. By introducing an ecological compensation factor, the Shapley values are modified and optimized. According to the Shapley value, the revenues of the three stakeholders (government, company and local residents) have increased. The ecological compensation factor was introduced to modify the Shapley value, after that the revenues of the government and the company declined slightly while the income of local residents improved significantly, reflecting the fact that residents in the bauxite development who are facing geological disasters, environmental pollution, revenue reduction and other threats deserve greater compensation. The introduction of an ecological compensation factor to optimize revenue distribution during mineral resource development is not only in line with the principle of ‘he who makes investment gets benefit’, but also ‘the polluter pays and the beneficiary compensates’. The equilibrium solution is also an acceptable outcome for all stakeholders involved in bauxite development. The Shapley value method has strong practical significance for the establishment of a more reasonable mechanism of allocating revenue from mineral resources development, achieving the best social and economic benefits and minimizing impacts on the ecological environment.