L. Fituni, I. Abramova Resource Potential of Africa and Russia's ...

ies. In 2005–2008, main US import sources of raw materials for
aluminum metal production were: Jamaica – 27%, Brazil – 16%;
Guinea – 15%, Australia – 14%, and other – 28%. The total consisted
of two primary commodities bauxites (Jamaica – 32%; Guinea
– 22%; Brazil – 18%; Guyana – 12%; and other – 16%) and alumina
(Australia – 41%; Suriname – 18%; Jamaica – 16%; Brazil – 12%;
and other – 13%).
In 2009, the year of acute phase of the global economic crisis,
world production of alumina decreased compared with that of 2008.
Based on production data from the International Aluminium Institute,
world alumina production during the first two quarters of 2009
decreased by 12% compared with that for the same period in 2008.
Reduced output from bauxite mines in Guinea, Guyana, Jamaica,
Russia, and Suriname was partially offset by increases in production
from new and expanded mines in Australia, Brazil, China, and India
and accounted for most of the slight decrease in worldwide production
of bauxite in 2009 compared with that of 2008.
Europe's dependence on getting cobalt, chromites, bauxites,
manganese ore and many other ores from Africa is of long standing.
During the colonial era, many former European states built entire
extracting industry sectors in Africa precisely for the needs of their
own companies. Hence, African economies still depend on exports
of their natural resources to former metropolitan states. According to
our estimates based on EU national sources, the European Union's
critical dependence on African imports are, in terms of platinum, 80
percent; in terms of rhodium, 55 percent; chromium and vanadium,
45 percent each; and cobalt, 40 percent.
There are no economically justified alternatives to African
sources with regard to the above types of resources. Besides, the EU
is currently highly dependent on African supplies of the ores of ferrous
metals, uranium, oil, gas, gold, zinc, bauxites and other ores,
despite the existence of some other economically less attractive
sources of import.
The European Commission has identified 14 critical raw materials
at EU level. (see Table 1.1.5). 17 According to EU approaches,
critical raw materials are those which display a particularly high
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