Evaluating the sufficiency of Japan׳s mineral resource entitlements for supply risk mitigation

The Japanese government and industries have been attempting to secure the future availability of mineral resources, because Japan imports most of its metals. To mitigate supply risk, the acquisition of mineral interests in foreign mining projects has been declared a pillar of the government׳s resource strategies. The sufficiency of the mineral interests held by Japanese companies, however, has not been evaluated quantitatively from a long-term perspective. By focusing on resource entitlements that accompany mineral interests, we developed an indicator named “reserve entitlements to demand ratio” that can be used to compare the sufficiency of mineral interests held between different metals. We then calculated the indicator for 17 metals and found that Japan held relatively high levels of entitlements for niobium, tungsten and lead in 2012, whereas it was quite low for palladium, platinum, and tin. The results revealed the possible overrating of supply risk for those highly-entitled metals and vice versa in the past assessments because they failed to consider the mineral interest as a criticality component. The developed methodology supports the choice of measures for securing mineral resources in Japan׳s resource strategy.