US mine development stretches nearly three decades; Time from discovery to production is second longest in the world

THE UNITED STATES’ efforts to produce the minerals needed to advance the energy transition away from fossil fuels has been greatly hampered by a complex and inefficient permitting process. A recent report from consultancy S&P Global found that the timeline from the discovery of a mineral deposit to a producing mine takes an average of 29 years in the United States.

This is the second longest in the world behind only Zambia and has damaged Washington’s efforts to boost output of critical minerals such as lithium, nickel and other metals for the energy transition, said the report.

The permitting process in the United States accounts for a large part of this time frame, averaging seven to 10 years and often longer for a number of projects such as the Rosemont copper and Resolution Copper projects in Arizona. S&P Global characterized the permitting process in the United States as a tangled, unpredictable federal permitting process, and said it is made worse by the lack of an office to oversee mining and the development of national mineral resources in the public interest. Many nations, including Canada and Australia have such positions while no comparable office exists in the United States.
The report comes amid rising pressure on U.S. officials to streamline what is seen by mining companies and some policymakers as a confusing and lengthy process to obtain a mining permit that harms efforts to offset China’s near-total control of the critical minerals sector.

S&P studied 268 mining projects across the globe from when a metal deposit was first discovered until production began. The report found the development timeline in copper and cobalt-rich Zambia to be the longest in the world at roughly 34 years, five years longer than the United States.
The report also notes that: “Without exploiting its own endowment, the U.S. will remain highly reliant on external partners — and vulnerable to deepening geopolitical rivalries.”

Canada, Argentina and Mongolia — where Rio Tinto developed the Oyu Tolgoi copper project — rounded out the top five longest development periods. Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Laos had some of the shortest development times in the world, at roughly 10 to 15 years, while Australia at 20 years was the best among countries most comparable to the United States.
The report, which did not offer policy recommendations, was paid for in part by the National Mining Association, a U.S. industry trade group. S&P Global said the NMA did “not provide data or substantive input.”

The S&P report noted that Canada and Australia have federal-level mining offices.
Data on Rio Tinto’s and BHP’s Resolution Copper project in Arizona and Northern Dynasty’s Pebble copper and gold project in Alaska — neither of which are permitted — were included in the report, which assumed they would open by 2030. Both projects have faced Indigenous and environmental opposition that the report did not offer suggestions to overcome.

A high rate of litigation against U.S. mining projects, the report found, has dampened exploration budgets, with companies with projects in Canada and Australia spending 81 percent and 57 percent more, respectively, to find new deposits than those in the United States in the past 15 years.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Jamie Freed)