Mining companies need to find ways to make owning a lithium or nickel stock ‘cool’ or ‘sexy’ to create more value for an industry that’s struggling to produce enough critical minerals to meet the rising demand for green products like electric vehicles, industry experts said at The Northern Miner’s quarterly Global Mining Symposium in late May.
People are interested in electric vehicles and the new technology hitting the road but aren’t aware of how “critical” a role the mining industry plays in producing the metals and minerals for those products, mining leaders on the “Turning Tesla investors into mining investors” panel said.
“We do a great job of talking to each other inside the industry and [there’s] a little bit of an echo chamber — we all know how important this is,” said Emily King, founder of Prospector Portal, a search engine that provides data on the mining industry. “But how we communicate outside of our industry can sometimes be really overwhelming, filled with jargon,” she said.
Nearly all crucial battery metals will witness supply deficits in the next decade as mining projects struggle to come online, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence analysts. The raw material disconnect is already impacting the end user as manufacturers announce cost increases, the research group recently said.
According to Martine Turenne, CEO of FPX Nickel (TSXV: FPX; OTC: FPOCF), mining companies ‘underspend’ on public outreach and advertising. He urged larger companies that have the budget — as opposed to junior miners — to invest more in this field.