The US Geological Society (USGS) has denied a bipartisan request to add copper to its official critical mineral list. The request was made by the Copper Development Association (CDA) due to a “dramatic supply risk”. The CDA’s president Andrew Kireta has criticised the decision as not being “consistent with the spirit or the letter of the law”. Several large copper miners including Rio Tinto, BHP and Freeport-McMoRan are CDA members. “Despite clear data showing that copper’s supply risk score is now above the threshold for automatic inclusion on the 2022 critical minerals list, USGS sent well-crafted letters to a ... (full story)