Abstract
In September 1985, the chairman of the transportation, aviation and materials subcommittee of the house of representatives requested that the director of the Bureau of Mines address the issue of South Africa and critical materials dependency in testimony before the subcommittee. Subsequent to the testimony, the Bureau has prepared a technical report focusing on the importance of South Africa and, in some cases, its neighboring countries as suppliers of six key materials: chromium, manganese, platinum-group metals, cobalt, gold, and vanadium. The report includes a qualitative analysis that examines the supply shortfall resulting from a potential disruption, options that are available for mitigating the impact and their likely effectiveness, and quantitative analyses that estimate the economic impacts in the chromium and manganese markets resulting from peacetime disruption scenarios specified by the subcommittee chairman. The concluding section treats the role and capabilities of the Bureau of Mines in dealing with mineral supply disruptions.
