One of Europe’s richest countries has just discovered the world’s largest phosphate deposit – Executive Digest

With so many countries in geopolitical competition, Europe is also characterized by a lack of natural resources, which puts territories in conflict with each other. However, Norway is an exception, and what is one of the richest countries in Europe has just increased its fortune, having discovered on its soil what will be the largest deposits of rock phosphate in the world.

Norway has generous reserves of oil, natural gas, and minerals such as iron, copper, lead, zinc, titanium, and nickel, and it has large forests that guarantee the provision of timber and has ideal terrain for building hydroelectric power stations, to the extent that it produces 96% of the electricity it consumes, in addition to having a huge coast facing the sea, with Rich marine ecosystem.

For a country that appears to have gotten all of its EuroMillions numbers right, last week also got both stars right.

The Anglo-Norwegian company Norge Mining has announced that a recently discovered phosphate rock deposit turned out to be much larger than expected.

According to you, it will contain at least 70 billion tons of this resource, which means that it is more than the sum of all the reserves that have been found around the world.

Phosphate rock is extremely important, as it allows the production of phosphorus, one of the most important (and most demanded) resources on the planet, and essential in fertilizer production industries with its application in renewable technologies, such as solar panels and phosphate batteries. • Iron and lithium.

Many scientists and specialists have previously pointed out a real “disaster” with the scarcity of this element, as it cannot be synthesized in a laboratory, but rather extracted only from rocks rich in phosphates.

Deposits of this element have been very limited on the planet, and until now have been largely concentrated in Morocco, the ‘champion’ of phosphorus reserves, with 50 billion tons of rock phosphate in the country, 90% of which is found worldwide.

The deposit was originally discovered in 2018, but excavations and drilling continued until, when it reached a depth of 4,500 meters this week, the announcement came that the reserves would be significantly higher than initially expected.

Before being able to enjoy the profits that this new business opportunity will bring, Norway must still assess whether the reserves are fully extractable, analyze the properties of the mineral and the presence of impurities and establish mechanisms for processing phosphorus, a process that releases greenhouse gases.

“From my point of view, it will take more than five years. Hopefully, before the end of the decade, Norway will be able to start production, ”says Jeff Amrish Rito, strategic advisor for energy and raw materials at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies (HCSS), in an interview. With the Spanish El Confidencial newspaper.

The discovery is also great news for the European Union, as Brussels prepares to pass the Critical Raw Materials Act, which aims to reduce member states’ dependence on China and other renewable energy and technology powers.