S&P agency notes rising demand for several minerals abundant in the region as a boost to its economic growth.
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) said Saturday that increased demand for minerals such as cobalt or graphite to sustain diversification from polluting fuels will benefit the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, including Portuguese-speaking Mozambique.
“Several commodity-exporting sub-Saharan African economies, particularly those located in the southern and central regions of the continent, could benefit from a significant boost from increased demand for several minerals abundant in the region, such as cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium, magnesium and rare earth metals,” Standard & Poor’s analysts write.
In an analysis note on the impact of the green transition on the region’s economies, S&P says it expects “several minerals to experience increased demand and prices, given their importance in low-carbon energy production and electric vehicle and battery production”, pointing to lithium, cobalt and graphite, which are key to electric battery production, and nickel, which is widely used in low-carbon energy production, particularly wind electricity generation, as examples.
“Demand for copper is also expected to increase, given its importance in the construction of networks and power lines,” point out the S&P analysts, recalling that, according to the International Energy Agency, “demand for these metals will increase dramatically in the coming decades, particularly for cobalt, graphite, lithium, whose demand may increase more than 40 times compared to the current value.
The economies of the region have an abundance of these materials essential for the energy transition, including graphite from Mozambique, Madagascar and Tanzania, cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo and copper from DRCongo and Zambia, in addition to lithium, common in Zimbabwe and DRCongo.
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