Ross and Beckett made a virtual presentation at the 2020 Virtual AAPG Conference recently and indicated that there is a strategic economic and environmental opportunity from the adoption of unconventional hydrocarbons E&P approach by leveraging available geoscience and engineering skills to generate technological competitive advantage by the Hydraulic Production of Critical Minerals. (Abstract) (YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn1lUX5bsTw&t=4115s beginning at Time Stamp: 1 hr. and 8 minutes into the Session).
According to one definition in the Energy Mineral Division’s Critical Minerals Committee, a critical mineral is a naturally occurring and extractable-from-rock commodity (exclusive of petroleum, uranium, and REE), that is vital to current and emerging energy technology, and at the same time, limited in supply by current or forecast requirement. Petroleum and Uranium [REE] are excluded from the CMC focus because they are the attention of significant effort elsewhere in the AAPG EMD's Uranium (Nuclear and REE) Committee.
The authors concluded that:
- Despite the increasing importance of renewables, Hydrocarbon fuels and derivatives
will remain essential to the global community and industry for the next few decades at
least, - Oil & Gas explorers will need to evolve with care, retaining core skills and competitive
advantage whilst moving to integrate strategically essential minerals and resource
exploitation and generation into their portfolios or ambit of control, - Future integrated energy companies will need to be prepared for increased scrutiny of
the entire energy chain and control all aspects of their involvement to ensure
environmentally and economically sustainable best practice, - The integrated energy resource business model is achievable by both Mining and Oil &
Gas Companies - each pathway made possible by increasing leverage of intrinsic
technical competencies and more effective by strategic partnership.
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