BHP Billiton is hot for electric vehicles. The Australian resources giant, which mines metals and coal used for both steelmaking and fueling power plants, is increasingly optimistic that there will be a surge in demand for some of its products as consumers opt for electric vehicles and other renewable energy technologies. Fiona Wild, BHP’s vice president, says that as we see more renewables and EVs, we also will see an impact on copper demand.
One million EVs were sold between 2010 and 2015, largely driven by regulatory mandates in important auto markets including the US, China and Europe. By 2020, about 2.2 million EVs will be sold globally, up from 460,000 expected in 2016. Electric vehicles require a lot more copper wiring than standard internal combustion engines. Copper accounts for 27 percent of BHP’s commodity sales, second after iron ore at 34 percent. Copper usage in electric cars will contribute to China’s demand growing at about 3.3 percent a year up to 2020, according to the government’s Five-Year Plan for the metals industry published by the ministry of industry and information technology last month. Demand for metals in lightweight transportation and new energy vehicles is part of a “new normal” for metals as the economy slows. The country became the world’s biggest copper consumer amid a construction boom and build-up of the electricity grid.
BHP Billiton has invested several hundreds of millions of dollars since 2007 in the research and development of technologies to reduce greenhouse gases, including carbon capture. The technology that would catch gases from fossil-fuel plants could become commercially viable in the next 15 to 25 years depending on government policies.
