The agency estimates some 68% of water will be seawater and 32% continental water with continental water usage forecast to fall to 6.7m3/s in 2032, a 45% reduction from the almost 12m3/s in 2020.

The reduction in continental water usage is unlikely to be fast enough to meet the goals of the national mining policy 2050 the government drafted in 2021. This set a goal of reducing continental water usage by mining to less than 10% by 2030 and 5% by 2040.

In addition to increasing production, increased water usage also reflects declining grades, which require more rock to be processed per unit of output, and the increasing shift in production to concentrates via more the water intensive flotation process.

Concentrate production is forecast to grow 49.7% from 4.31 million tonnes in 2020 to 6.39Mt in 2032. Of the 34 current concentrate operations, only 19 will remain at the end of the period, although the total number of operations will be 38 due to new projects coming on stream.

Within this, an increasing amount of sulphide mineral will be processed in concentrate plants, with their production forecast to grow 51.1% from 692,500 tonnes in 2020 to more than 1Mt in 2032.

At the same time, hydrometallurgical output is forecast to fall from 1.47Mt in 2020 to 558,366t in 2032, a 62% fall, ending the period with only 15 operations.