SMT007 Magazine

SMT007-Jun2022

Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1469343

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 25 of 87

26 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2022 What are some of the global supply and demand trends in your industry and how might that be affecting us in electronics manufactur- ing? Dykes: Metals, especially now with all the new technologies, are appearing ever ywhere— your circuitry, desalination plants, batteries, even your drinking water. Every single metal is in strong demand. e supply is getting shorter and shorter, and as mines become older, the grades are dropping and that reduces the amount of metal available. It now takes about five times longer to permit a mine than it used to because of the new regulations and rules you must go through. Even then, some mines just can't go into pro- duction because they're either too costly or the opposition is too strong, and you can't get the permits to proceed. Right now, the supply is far less than the demand. Of course, that demand is increasing on a steady basis, year in, year out. at's why you're seeing the increase in metal prices. Johnson: It sounds to me like any sort of domes- tic mining is under even stricter regulation, even while the demand is going up. Dykes: Definitely. What we go through in the mining industry—some of it's good, while some is red tape and just absolute garbage. But other parts are good for the environment to make sure that the old days of mining, where you just rape and pillage with no care for what was going on, is long gone. Now, when we look at developing new mines, one of the first things we look at is the environment—rare and endan- gered species, trees, and more, before we even start spending the hundreds of millions of dol- lars it takes to develop a mine. Johnson: Hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a mine? In our space, to build a com- puter chip factory, a semiconductor factory, is hundreds of millions of dollars and four or five years before it's producing. Is it comparable with a mine? If you decide to go forward, how quickly can you get a mine up and running? Dykes: Well, it depends. From first boots on the ground, you've got to drill it and explore; for the larger scale mines, like the ones that sup- ply your metals, it's averaging close to 20 years. Johnson: Twenty years to get a mine started? Dykes: From when you've discovered and outlined it, and let's say you've got all your resources and a bankable feasibility study, it's probably two to four years to construct it. Your construction costs can range from a cou- ple hundred million dollars for the small mines up to several billion dollars for the large scale. A large-scale copper mine today will cost $2 billion to $3 billion, maybe even more. We've been working on a mine in Idaho since 2004. We still have about two years to go on the eco- nomic analysis part and then it will be three or four years to build it. e cost to build it is any- where from $1 billion to $3 billion. Shaun Dykes

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of SMT007 Magazine - SMT007-Jun2022