Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 6
The Future of Economic Geology
6.1
Introduction
When we wrote the first edition of this topic in 2008-2009, the world was in the
depths of the financial crisis and activity of the minerals sector was at a minimum.
We nonetheless painted a positive picture of the future of mining, mineral explora-
tion and the study of ore deposits, arguing that the world will always require metals
and other mineral products. We recognised that recycling and substitution will meet
an increasing proportion of these needs, but the rest must be mined. We talked about
whether (not when) our mineral resources will be exhausted and concluded that this
is unlikely ever to happen, at least for most metals.
At that time the world was preoccupied with complex issues related to the supply
and consumption of petroleum, a product for which it is probable that the rate of
production will soon start to decline, if it has not already done so. The rate of this
decline and the forces that drive it are subject to major uncertainties. New
discoveries of enormous, previously unknown, oil fields off the coast of Brazil
and the potential to find other deposits in the Africa and the Arctic suggests that the
supply problem may not be as critical as is sometimes made out.
The outlook for the global supply of natural gas has changed more dramatically.
Five years ago authorities in the USA were alarmed about the dependence of their
country on imported natural gas, often from suppliers in unstable or politically
hostile countries. They had started to build a series of new terminals to accommo-
date tankers that would deliver liquefied natural gas to the USA from the Middle
East, Indonesia, Australia and other exporting countries. They estimated that within
a decade, the USA would have to import a major portion of its natural gas. At the
same time, European leaders were concerned about the dependence of their
countries on imports of gas from Russia - concerns exacerbated by the pressure
applied by the Russian firm Gazprom on the Ukraine. Then, quite suddenly,
technological advances allowed the extraction of gas from a new source - shale
gas. This resource had been known for over a century but previously the gas could
not be extracted economically from such low-permeability rocks. The new
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