Shock and ore: Minerals for the defence industry
- By: John P Sykes
Posted in: Blog, Commodities, Media, Publications, Strategy
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Another Strictly Boardroom article published last year looked at the role of metals and minerals in the defence industry.
The issue of ‘critical’ or ‘strategic’ minerals, particularly for the defence industry has been of increased salience in recent years. Whilst the military broadly uses most metals and minerals – it uses buildings, automobiles, and consumer products, just like the rest of society, there are also a number of niche applications, such as missile guidance, which do require specific metals and minerals. Again, this is a broad list of elements, quite literally from aluminium to zinc, however, once we consider Western import dependence, a smaller list of ‘critical defence metals’ arises: arsenic, bismuth, chromium, cobalt, gallium, indium, manganese, niobium, platinum, rhenium, scandium, silicon, strontium, tantalum, tin, tungsten, and yttrium.
The article is entitled: “Shock and ore: Minerals for the defence industry” and is available to subscribers on MiningNews.net, or contact me.
For keen followers of the Strictly Boardroom column, our book “Strictly (Mining) Boardroom Volume II: A Practitioners Guide for Next Generation Directors” was published last year and is available as a paperback or e-book from Major Street Publishing or Amazon. We’re pleased to say that the book received a very positive review in the AusIMM Bulletin and in Geoscientist magazine – the members publication of the Geological Society of London.