Electio Invest

Electio Invest is a leading global alternative asset management company focusing on

commodities, primarily Technology Metals. Electio Invest was founded by a group of likeminded high net worth investors as a niche investment platform enabling judicious investors
to diversify their portfolios into the Investment Sector.

Electio Invest - Demand For Technology

Metals Rising - Special Report by Electio
Invest

Millions of people in emerging economies are aspiring to a Western lifestyle; at the

same time demand for metals is soaring due to the booming global population. As
technology advances, the variety of metals we use is also expanding. As an unfortunate
result of this, the fears regarding scarcity of metals and depletion of resources have

returned in the past ten years or so. These concerns are focused on the future supplies
of metals such as lithium, indium, tellurium, Technology Metal elements
and germanium. All of these metals are crucial to producing new digital and low-carbon
energy technologies, and this includes electric and photovoltaic cars.
China reduced its exports of Technology Metals back in 2009 when this issue came to
global prominence, and the government was trying to keep up the supply to its very
quickly expanding domestic manufacturing economy. Socio-economic and geopolitical
risks, such as labour relations in southern Africa and territorial disputes in Asia, can
disturb supply because technology metals are not produced in very many locations.
The issue is compounded by commercial barriers. Compared to the markets for copper,
iron and aluminium, the markets for these materials can be risky due to the fact that
theyre not easy to extract and their markets are complex, small and volatile. The

industrial, scientific and policy communities must combine together to ensure that

supplies of these metals are secured for future technology. The governments have
commissioned many assessments, and these have all fallen short. They do identify key
issues, but they also generate lots of non-effective discussion on whether certain metals
are critical. Generally their solutions are generic and of no practical use. One such
response has been the idea that securing technology metals in the United Kingdom and
mainland Europe could be achieved through recycling. Certainly, recycling is very
important when managing stocks of common industrial metals, however applying this to
technology metals would be very complex. Some materials are impossible, or
impractical, to recover after use. Its obvious that more primary sources must be found

to continue meeting the rising demand, and to replace lost technology metals. We need
to better understand the geological processes that concentrate these metals if we are to
find new resources. The flows of individual metals must be mapped from the ground to
their final form if we are to avoid unintended environmental impacts, and also to increase
efficiency.
These Are Rare Resources
In the past forty years the demand for technology metals has exploded, with eighty
percent of the cumulative global production of Tech Metal elements, gallium, indium

and platinum-group metals occurring since 1980. Its expected that growth will continue
in the foreseeable future. Most of the technology metals are found in only a few areas:
for example, in 2011, 57% of indium originated from China and 72% of global cobalt
came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo: these metals are produced in low
quantities. In 2011, 1.5 billion tonnes of crude steel and 45.2 million tons of aluminium
were extracted globally, compared with just 72,900 tonnes of tungsten. Its been the
conclusion of some studies that the scarcity and depletion of technology metals are
unavoidable, because rising consumption will exceed current reserves. What these
forecasts fail to remember is that geological reserves are dynamic; expanding as metal

prices rise and the extraction of lower-grade ores becomes economical, and contracting
as prices fall. A combination of technical advances and price pressures has managed to
keep global reserves of most of these metals either steady or growing during the past
fifty years. There has been little need to look for technology metals until recently
because they were of little economic interest. Because of this, very little is known about
their distribution on the Earth, or what natural processes concentrate them. With
increasing knowledge we should be able to explore new frontiers and also re-appraise
old mining areas. For example, in 2009 at Norra Karr in Sweden, a significant deposit
of heavy Technology Metals elements was identified, and in southwest England

previous mines could hold promise for tungsten. However, a major challenge can be to
overcome public objections to new mines, particularly in the developed world where
people are very hesitant to embrace the repercussions of overt consumption.