On 14 June 2022, the US government’s state department announced the formation of an international Mineral Security Partnership (MSP).
Salient features of Mineral Security Partnership (MSP)
- The MSP countries are Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Sweden, the UK, US and the European Commission.
- India is not among the MSP countries. As per the Indian Express report, the Union Finance Ministry is learnt to have communicated with the Ministry of External Affairs to explore the possibility of how New Delhi can join the 11-member group.
- The partnership was announced at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention, the largest mining event in the world, held in Toronto.
- The MSP’s stated goal is to ensure that critical minerals are produced, processed and recycled in a way that supports the ability of countries to realize the full economic development of their geological endowments.
- As per the press release, members are committed to building robust, responsible critical mineral supply chains to support economic prosperity and climate objectives.
- The new grouping could focus on the supply chains of minerals such as Cobalt, Nickel, Lithium and also the 17 “rare earth” minerals.
- While Cobalt, Nickel and Lithium are required for batteries used in electric vehicles, rare earth minerals are critical, in trace amounts, in the semiconductors and high-end electronics manufacturing.
- MSP alliance is seen as being primarily focused on evolving an alternative to China, which has created processing infrastructure in rare earth minerals and has acquired mines in Africa for elements such as cobalt.
What are rare earth elements?
- Rare earth comprises seventeen elements which include the light REEs (LREEs) such as lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, europium, and the heavy REEs (HREEs) gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium.
- Some RE are available in India such as Lanthanum, Cerium, Neodymium, Praseodymium and Samarium, while others such as Dysprosium, Terbium, Europium that are classified as HREE are not available in Indian deposits in extractable quantity.
- Hence, there is a dependence on countries such as China for HREE, which is one of the leading producers of RE with an estimated 70 per cent of the global production.
