Mineral Resources and Development

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This series aggregates and presents the World Bank`s knowledge on oil, gas, and mining in an accessible format. It is meant to assist knowledge sharing and trigger policy dialogue on topics relevant to managing natural resource wealth sustainably and responsibly. The series is produced by the Extractive Industries Unit of the World Bank. The unit serves as a global technical adviser that supports sustainable development by building capacity and providing extractive industry sector-related advisory services to resource-rich developing countries.

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    The Aluminum Industry in West and Central Africa : Lessons Learned and Prospects for the Future
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-12) Husband, Charles ; McMahon, Gary ; Veen, Peter van der
    The purpose of this working paper is to evaluate the future of the aluminum industry in West and Central Africa, with a focus on aluminum smelting and its relationship with power generation and availability in the regions. The organization of this study is as follows. It continues with an overview of the global aluminum industry, including a description of the production process, current and projected supply and demand, and the most important cost considerations for companies investing in the industry. Chapter two provides a brief history and future prospects for the aluminum sector in West and Central Africa. Chapter three contains an analysis of the viability of the two most important existing smelters in the regions, Valco in Ghana and Alucam in Cameroon, as well as a briefer analysis of Alscon in Nigeria and the potential for other smelters in the regions. In chapter four, the recent experience of the three large aluminum smelters in southeast Africa is reviewed and lessons are extracted for West and Central Africa. Conclusions and recommendations are in chapter five.
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    Engagement with Civil Society : An EITI Implementation Case Study
    (Washington, DC, 2009-11) World Bank
    Within the World Bank Group (WBG), the Oil, Gas, and Mining Policy Division (COCPO) is responsible for policy and advisory services in the oil, gas, and mining sectors, including World Bank lending. The unit also manages WBG participation in a number of donor-funded global programs and partnerships, including the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). The main finding of this paper is that the direct support to civil society organization (CSO) through the Development Grant Facility (DGF) mechanism (July 2005 to June 2008) was well received and met key program objectives. In particular, DGF funding catalyzed the EITI in countries by helping strengthen CSO ability to play their role in the initiative. Working closely with the Revenue Watch Institute (RWI) during the later part of the DGF grant cycle helped COCPO build partnerships with CSO. The CSO also found the strategic nature of the DGF interventions to be positive, given that the grants allowed them to carry out a broad range of activities (advocacy, research, capacity building, and communications) around the sensitive topic of extractive industries and EITI.
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    Changes in CO2 Emissions from Energy Use : A Multicountry Decomposition Analysis
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-10) Kojima, Masami ; Bacon, Robert
    The continued growth of global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and their likely adverse effects on global warming are focusing debate on the contribution of various countries to total emissions and the comparability of efforts across countries in mitigating these emissions. This paper examines recent trends in CO2 emissions across countries at different levels of development and asks what has been contributing to the growth of emissions as well as to their moderation. The paper applies a decomposition analysis, an accounting methodology based on a log mean Divisia index, to analyze the change in CO2 emissions over a decade.
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    Gender Dimensions of the Extractive Industries : Mining for Equity
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-08) Eftimi, Adriana ; Heller, Katherine ; Strongman, John
    Extractive industries (EI) impacts can be positive and negative, spanning economic, social, and environmental issues. Oil, gas, and mining projects may create jobs, but may also consume farming land for their use, changing livelihoods and limiting access to water, food, and firewood. Water sources may become polluted, but new roads may be built and communities may become electrified. Markets may boom, but prices may rise steeply. Given male and female relationships to each other, to the economy, to the land, and to their communities, men and women have very different experiences of these EI impacts, and evidence increasingly demonstrates that in general women are more vulnerable to the risks, with little access to the benefits. This publication presents how and why men and women are differently impacted by EI, exploring what the implications are for business and development, and providing policy and action suggestions for how to mitigate negative impacts and amplify positive ones and how to monitor and improve results. The publication focuses primarily on larger scale commercial operations but also considers some of the issues relating to artisan and small-scale mining (ASM). The report is addressed to the stakeholders in extractive industries, i.e., oil, gas, and mining development and operations community members and leaders; government officials; and managers and staff of EI companies.
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    Mainstreaming Gender into Extractive Industries Projects : Guidance Note for Task Team Leaders
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-08) Eftimie, Adriana ; Heller, Katherine ; Strongman, John
    Extractive industries (EI) can bring many positive development impacts to the communities involved, but also have the potential to create or exacerbate vulnerabilities within these communities. Benefits and risks are often evaluated and measured at the community level, with little examination of the different impacts on men and women. In fact, evidence suggests that a gender bias exists in the distribution of risks and benefits in EI projects: benefits accrue to men in the form of employment and compensation, while the costs, such as family and social disruption, and environmental degradation, fall most heavily on women. Despite the ample evidence of gender bias, and its implications, in EI, there is significant scope for increasing the gender focus of most EI projects in the World Bank. Analyzing and adapting projects to local gender issues can help to mitigate the risks created by EI, and amplify the potential benefits to both men and women, leading to increased profitability and more sustainable development impacts. Furthermore, understanding and adapting projects to improve gender sensitivity is essential to realizing the Bank's stated commitment to both mainstreaming gender and to the third Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of gender equality and empowerment of women. The following guidelines briefly outline some of the ways that EI can impact men and women differently and the associated development implications, and provide step by step suggestions for how to understand and integrate gender issues into World Bank Group EI project design.
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    Government Response to Oil Price Volatility : Experience of 49 Developing Countries
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-07) Kojima, Masami
    Oil prices rose from 2004 to historic highs in mid-2008, only to fall precipitously in the last four months of 2008 and lose all the gains of the preceding four and a half years. The steep price increase from January 2007 to July 2008 was challenging for all economies. While the sharp drop in prices since August 2008 has been welcome news for consumers, the cause of it, the global financial crisis, is not. Moreover, currency depreciation against the dollar in many developing countries has meant that, in local currency units, petroleum product prices have not fallen as sharply as in U.S. dollars. This report examines the policy responses of 49 developing country governments to world oil price movements in the last three years. The sample includes 16 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, 15 in Asia, 10 in Latin America, and 8 in the Middle East and North Africa. The report updates a companion 2006 publication on coping with higher oil prices and builds upon two other publications: one on oil price volatility and another on the degree of pass-through of world oil price increases between January 2004 and August 2009. As with all other publications in this series, this report examines issues related to oil price levels and volatility in the downstream petroleum sector and other sectors where oil is an important input, such as transport, fisheries, and agriculture, from the point of view of consumers. It does not consider macro-level policies (such as monetary or exchange rate policy) or the impact of oil price changes on the macroeconomic performance of countries, nor does it discuss management of the windfall income by large oil exporters and the long-term economic consequences of revenue management.
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    Sub-Saharan Africa Refinery Study
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-07) Hammitt, James ; Robinson, Lisa
    Over the past two decades, the growing awareness of the role that emissions play in human health and environmental degradation had led to a general movement in many parts of the world to control emissions to reduce the impacts. This movement has mainly taken two forms: 1) the development and subsequent required use of control devices for stationary sources and vehicle sources and, 2) changes in the specifications of transportation fuels to reduce emissions of the major pollutants. These trends originated in the industrialized countries and are now spreading, at different rates, throughout the world. As in other world regions, the first improvement in the specifications of transportation fuels in Sub-Saharan Africa was the elimination of lead. The phase out of lead is now complete and the World Bank and its partners are looking at the next step the reduction of sulfur in transportation fuels. The growing complexity of the vehicle emission control technologies for both personal vehicles and commercial trucks and the concomitant need for clean fuels.In addition to the growing awareness of the human health and environmental impact of vehicle source emissions, have placed increasing requirements on refineries. Sulfur is not an additive but a natural part of crude oil. Its removal processes presents both technological and economic challenges to refiners. However, by coming later than Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regions to ultra-low sulfur fuels, SSA refineries are in a position to benefit from the operating experience and process improvements obtained elsewhere in the refining industry.
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    Mineral Rights Cadastre : Promoting Transparent Access to Mineral Resources
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06) Ortega Girones, Enrique ; Pugachevsky, Alexandra ; Walser, Gotthard
    This document proposes a set of generally applicable recommendations and good practices for creating a Mineral Rights Cadastre (MRC), an administrative body responsible for overseeing the process of granting and managing mineral licenses throughout a country. The document reviews lessons learned from World Bank-funded projects aimed at reforming mineral rights management and assesses the impacts and benefits of the implemented changes. The document focuses on the MRC system as a key regulatory agency of mining sector administration. This study is also intended to fill a gap in the literature on mining sector administration, as few publications since roughly the 1930s have been dedicated to the overall analysis of MRCs, particularly in relation to modern and recent mining cadastral practices. While the overall concepts and principles presented in this document are intended to be universally valid and applicable, there is no single solution to mining sector development, and it would be unrealistic to believe that actions that have been successful in one country can be directly transferred to others. The MRC of any given country will need to be adapted to that particular country's culture, tradition, existing legal framework, development capacity, and other factors. This document describes the trade-offs that may be necessary to arrive at an acceptable solution; using case studies, it also highlights concrete applications that can be recommended, based on typical country circumstances.
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    Emerging Players in Global Mining
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06) Humphreys, David
    Companies from the emerging economies are a growing feature of the global mining industry. This document looks at who these companies are and the factors behind their growth. The contribution of the emerging economies to the global supply of minerals since 2000 is striking. With their growth in production exceeding that of the advanced economies in almost every commodity, the share of these countries in global mineral production mounted steadily. Several factors have combined to provide a boost to the role and fortunes of emerging economy companies in mining over recent years. Five of the most important are: (i) market liberalization and privatization of state-owned companies; (ii) privileged access of local companies to significant and underdeveloped local resources; (iii) strong financial positions due to the mining boom of 2003-2008; (iv) drive for geographic and commodity diversification, at times with tacit support of respective home governments; and (v) strategic expansion, usually to ensure raw material supplies for their metallurgical operations. The role of the emerging economy countries, and of companies based in these countries, is going to become increasingly important to the minerals industry in coming years.
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    Financial Surety : Guidelines for the Implementation of Financial Surety for Mine Closure
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06) Sassoon, Meredith
    It is now accepted practice that when a company relinquishes a mining title, whether for an exploration or mining site, it is responsible for carrying out the rehabilitation of that site prior to departure. To ensure this is the case, most jurisdictions now require some form of closure plan or rehabilitation program to be submitted to the regulatory authority prior to the start of any work on the site. It is an increasingly common requirement for the closure plan to contain details of the estimated cost of rehabilitation and for a financial surety to be established at the same time. This report aims to provide governments with the information they need to make their own informed decisions. It is based on a review of existing financial surety systems in a number of countries. Questionnaires were sent out to a total of fourteen regulatory authorities; of these, nine provided sufficient detail about their existing financial surety systems to be included as full case studies. These are presented in the section case studies along with a summary of the latest European Union (EU) waste directives. Except where otherwise stated, the financial surety applies to all stages of a mining project, regardless of size. The purpose of the financial surety is to ensure that there will be sufficient funds to pay for site rehabilitation and post closure monitoring and maintenance at any stage in the life of the project, including early or temporary closure. The main aim of site rehabilitation is to reduce the risk of pollution, restore the land and landscape for an appropriate use, improve the aesthetics of the area, and prevent any subsequent degradation. The extent and cost of final site rehabilitation can be reduced if the site is rehabilitated even as it is being mined, so that the rate of restoration is similar to the rate of exploration or exploitation. This ideal is not often achieved, however; the majority of rehabilitation usually takes place once work on the lease has ceased.