Mining economist opinions on using multi-agent methodology to simulate metal markets

Abstract

In coming years, mining economists expect the international demand for metals to rise. Market distortions are likely to appear, because producing countries controlling the resources can implement exportation quotas for certain categories of metals. Consequently, consuming countries like France face increasing risks of shortages of some metals. In response, the French government suggests that a set of prospective tools be implemented, including a prospective simulation tool based on a multi-agent system approach. The goal of this paper is to report and discuss critiques by mining economists on the value and abilities of multi-agent systems (MAS) to simulate critical metal markets whenever the approach is appropriate. The critiques are collected by confronting an existing agent-based computational economics (ACE) model of the lithium market with market reality and then by applying the discussions generally to other metals. The motivation is (a) to define the gaps currently existing between MAS and mining (b) to provide indicators on how the ACE model should be enhanced to reduce these gaps and (c) to produce an improved initial metal classification that is suitable for such a modelling exercise.

A Dynamic and Endogenous Coupling of Environment and Economy as a Future Approach to Assessing Raw Material Criticality

“…One of the main disadvantages attributed to ACE is often their low acceptance in the mining field [22], unlike the MFA and LCA approaches, which are more widely known and used by experts. However, in the past seven years, there is growing interest in the implementation of ACE for criticality: [23] on lithium, [24] on minerals in general, [3] on rare earths, and [11] on platinum.…”