Modeling byproduct and coproduct mine production and mineral substitution using multidimensional supply curves: Application to the Cu-Co-Ni system and beyond

Abstract

Rapid demand growth is expected for many metals used in the energy transition. Many of these metals are byproducts of other commodities. Byproduct production’s price response is tied to host mineral economics, complicating its supply dynamics. Moreover, many of these metals are used in applications where the material properties desired are difficult to substitute; effectively, limiting how quickly demand can adapt to changes in commodity price. Previous work has demonstrated the interconnectivity of jointly produced mineral commodities from the supply side, where the copper–cobalt–nickel system was used and demand was assumed independent across commodities. Studies to understand byproduct-coproduct market interconnectivity on the demand side are limited, while studies on the interconnectivity of supply and demand simultaneously are even more so. We propose a modification to the multicommodity supply curve method to enable inter-commodity effects on demand simultaneous with supply. In batteries, high cobaltprices may push consumers to transition to high-nickel chemistries, causing the nickel demand surface to decrease with nickel price but increase with cobaltprice, creating a two-dimensional demand surface. Below cross-price elasticities of 0.05, inter-commodity effects were found to be negligible, potentially permitting exclusion of these effects for many commodities. This additional demand curve complexity introduces potential computation challenges alongside the capacity to model many interrelated commodity systems such as rare earth elements, ferroalloys, country-oriented subsidies or restrictions, and bifurcated sustainable metals markets. By presenting the work done on multicommodity supply surfaces to date and potential new directions, this work aims to catalyze the next round of innovative approaches to modeling jointly produced commodities.