back Cobalt as a case study in the Roskill Paper: Critical thinking about critical raw materials in the EU
June 4, 2014 | Category: Cobalt News
Roskill Paper: Critical thinking about critical raw materials in the EULast week, the European Union's Ad-Hoc Working Group on defining critical raw materials released a new report, the first since its original study was published in 2010. The new report uses the same quantitative methodology as the original study, which classifies materials as "critical" through analysis of two key factors: economic importance and supply risk.
The 2010 report identified 14 raw materials as critical, from a shortlist of 41. In the 2013 update, 54 materials were analysed, with REEs now divided into "heavy" and "light" subsets, and with scandium also considered separately. The new report identifies 27 materials as critical.
In this briefing paper, Roskill provides a concise overview of the EU's quantitative methodology and report findings, before arguing that it is prudent to analyse other factors, not considered in the EU study, in order to develop a more nuanced understanding of supply risk.
To download this briefing paper please follow this link.