Course Description
Critical minerals — lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earth elements, copper, and others — are the foundation of the energy transition, essential to batteries, magnets, and clean-energy infrastructure. Demand for some, such as lithium, is projected to rise several-fold by 2040, reshaping exploration, mining, and geopolitics. This course provides a comprehensive understanding of critical minerals across the value chain.
Participants learn which minerals are critical and why, how and where they occur, the exploration and processing challenges specific to them, and the supply-demand, geopolitical, and sustainability dynamics that make them strategic. The course equips professionals to understand the critical minerals landscape and its implications for exploration, mining, and investment.
What you will achieve
By the end of this training course, participants will be able to:
- Explain what makes a mineral "critical" and why
- Identify the key critical minerals and their uses
- Understand where and how critical minerals occur
- Describe the exploration challenges for critical minerals
- Understand critical mineral processing challenges
- Explain supply-demand dynamics and projections
- Understand the geopolitics of critical minerals
- Appreciate sustainability and ESG dimensions
How the course is delivered
The course combines critical minerals geology and processing with supply-demand, geopolitical, and sustainability context. Participants explore the critical minerals landscape through commodity examples and strategic analysis.
The programme balances technical understanding of critical minerals with the strategic dynamics that make them central to the energy transition.
Designed for
This training course is ideal for:
- Geologists and mining professionals
- Exploration and project professionals
- Investment and strategy professionals in mining
- Energy transition and supply chain specialists
- Anyone engaging with critical minerals
Daily programme
- What makes a mineral critical
- Key critical minerals and their uses
- The energy transition and mineral demand
- Criticality assessment
- How critical minerals occur
- Lithium deposits and sources
- Rare earth elements
- Cobalt, nickel, and other battery metals
- Exploration challenges for critical minerals
- Processing challenges and routes
- Recovery and refining
- Recycling and secondary sources
- Supply-demand dynamics and projections
- Geopolitics of critical minerals
- Sustainability and ESG
- Workshop and review
Certification & accreditation
BII Certificate of Completion
BII Certificate of Completion Upon successful completion, participants receive a BII Development Institute Certificate of Completion with a unique reference code that is independently verifiable. Our certificates are recognised internationally and reflect successful completion of your chosen programme.
