Christel Bories, CEO of Eramet, accompanies Emmanuel Macron for his African tour. At the head of the French mining group, she is worried about the grip of China on the world reserves of minerals, and in particular of lithium, necessary for the manufacture of the electric car.
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The boss of Eramet flies with the President of the Republic to Gabon, Wednesday March 1. The French group operates a manganese mine in this country, making it Gabon’s leading private employer. But elsewhere on the continent, China has a head start. “China understood long before Europe that the battle for energy transition was going to be above all a battle for metals,” according to Christel Bories, CEO of Eramet, global mining and metallurgical group.
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“To make electrical networks you need copper, to make batteries you need nickel, lithium and cobalt, resumes Christel Bories. These metals, China does not have them – any more than Europe for that matter – but it has understood that it is necessary to have them to control the value chain.
“China has gone outside its territory, to Africa, to Latin America, to buy mines, to exploit them and it has indeed got its hands on a lot of deposits.”
Christel Bories, CEO of Erametat franceinfo
But where there is a place to take and Eramet has a card to play, Christel Bories is convinced: “that of responsible mining. African countries began to understand that the Chinese way of operating was not the one that brought them the most in terms of training for their population, economic development and water conservation and biodiversity.” And according to the boss of Eramet, some African countries are also asking themselves the question of reallocating certain deposits currently exploited by the Chinese.
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