No 1 source of global mining news and opinion
The US must improve its mine permitting process if it hopes to boost domestic supplies of critical minerals to power the clean energy transition, the CEO of copper giant Freeport-McMoRan said on Monday.“The question is, given our political system that we have today and the dysfunctionality of it, how do you go from getting a project verbally accepted to getting actions done?”
Adkerson sat next to Granholm at the conference’s Monday lunch and said he had a productive conversation with the secretary about permitting reform. “We talk a lot about finding common ground. You got to find it. It’s going to take out of your economics, but otherwise you don’t have a viable business plan if you don’t come up with a sustainable solution,” said Quirk, currently the company’s president.
“We’re trying to advance technology to reduce worker requirements wherever we can, but it’s a US problem for us,” he said. “In Peru and Indonesia,” where the company also mines copper, “we have flood of applicants for all of our jobs.”