Impact of Covid-19 on the Mining Sector and Raw Materials Security in Selected European Countries

Andrzej Gałaś, Alicja Kot-Niewiadomska, Hubert Czerw, Vladimir Simić, Michael Tost, Linda Wårell and Slávka Gałaś
Additional contact information
Andrzej Gałaś: Division of Mineral Policy, Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute, Polish Academy of Science, Wybickiego 7A, 31-261 Krakow, Poland
Alicja Kot-Niewiadomska: Division of Mineral Policy, Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute, Polish Academy of Science, Wybickiego 7A, 31-261 Krakow, Poland
Hubert Czerw: Division of Mineral Policy, Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute, Polish Academy of Science, Wybickiego 7A, 31-261 Krakow, Poland
Vladimir Simić: Faculty of Mining and Geology, University of Belgrade, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Michael Tost: Department of Mineral Resources Engineering, Montanuniversität Leoben, 8700 Leoben, Austria
Linda Wårell: Economics Unit, Luleå University of Technolgy, 971 87 Luleå, Sweden
Slávka Gałaś: Faculty of Geology, Geophysics and Environmental Protection, AGH University of Science and Technology, al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland

Resources, 2021, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-23

Abstract: Events that change the global economy rapidly, without warning, in principle strongly affect mining, which is one of the pillars of global development. After the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the mining pillar seems to be relatively stable. In this study, thanks to the meeting of an international team, it was possible to collect and compare a set of data on the impact on mining. In contrast to the general assessments of the stability of the mining sector, the authors decided to assess the impact of Covid-19 at individual stages of the mining project life cycle. In this way, it was possible to identify the most impacted fragments of the mining pillar. It was assessed that the highest influence of Covid-19 is observed in projects implementing feasibility studies and in projects for the development of new mines. The same is true of extracting residual resources in mines prior to the closure decision. The medium impact was confirmed at the exploration and discovery stage. The authors conclude that the impact on the current mining production is smaller and the effects in this case are short term, which is mainly due to a continued strong demand for minerals in China, which has balanced the weaker demand in other parts of the world. On the other hand, stopping the exploration and development of new mines will have a long-term impact, including an increased possibility of disruption of the future security of supplies of raw materials.

Keywords: mining project life cycle; Covid-19; raw material security; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/10/5/39/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/10/5/39/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jresou:v:10:y:2021:i:5:p:39-:d:542028

Access Statistics for this article

Resources is currently edited by Ms. Donchian Ma

More articles in Resources from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().