, Columnists
Elon Musk Won't Save Big Mining
Cobalt, lithium and graphite fall in that no-man's land of being somewhat costly, but not consumed in great volumes.
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The world's biggest mining companies have more or less recovered from the commodity boom and bust of the past decade. At the same time, they've been left with an existential crisis: What minerals are going to drive their growth in the decades to come?
Aluminum was white-hot in 2007 when Rio Tinto Group paid $38 billion for Alcan Inc., but it's since been sunk by a wave of Chinese oversupply. Coal and iron ore helped drive the Bloomberg Commodity Index to its most recent peak in 2011, but have fallen on harder times due to fears of climate-related demand weakness and a plateau in steel production. Even copper faces surpluses through to 2020, according to Bloomberg Intelligence's supply model, which would tend to weigh on prices.