Airbus calls for a metals stockpile policy in EU

European aerospace manufacturer Airbus called on the EU to act on several fronts to secure metals availability at the EIT Raw Materials Summit in Berlin this week.

The aerospace and defence industries are heavily dependant on metals such as titanium, used widely in aircraft and engine manufacturing. Russia is the third-biggest producer worldwide after China and Japan. Airbus used to rely on Russia for some of its supply, Argus understands, but has made efforts to move away from it recently. Other strategic materials for the aerospace sector whose supply relies largely on Russia and other countries outside the EU are nickel, aluminium, cobalt and chromium.

"Currently we are highly exposed geopolitically," Airbus vice-president of metallic material procurement Laurent Jara said in a panel. "Let's be realistic, in the short term the only option we have is to create resilience," he added.

Jara emphasised the need for stockpiling strategic materials at a European level, calling for an 18–22-month stockpile.

"We have no choice… the supply chain process of building an aircraft can take up to seven years, we had Covid now we have a war, what is next? We need to build resilience but, in the meantime, stockpile needs to be implemented today".

Supply chain transparency and end-to-end traceability are also key.

"If you want to have a strategy you need traceability, you need to know who is using your product, you need a clear understanding of the flow," he said. "Then you can also understand single-source exposure while optimising the footprint".

To achieve that, different companies will have to cooperate at a cross-sectoral level.

"We can build a strategy that can benefit other industries," he told delegates. "It is a collective effort; partnership creates complementary opportunities."

For instance, Jara added, the aerospace industry needs big volumes of titanium and the defence industry needs less, so it can be leaders on that. In the same way, the industry uses smaller tonnages of rare earths so other sectors can build the strategy and it can learn from them.

When asked about companies' confidentiality as a challenge to create synergies between sectors and sometimes even between competitors, he said that even though volumes cannot be shared at an intelligence level, they can share macro-level knowledge.

Jara also called for increasing mining capacity in Europe as part of a long-term solution to reduce foreign dependence.

"Titanium melting capacity in Europe exists but is very small," he said. "We need more mining capacity and more melting even if these topics are often taboo in Europe."

Reducing barriers to recycle is another crucial aspect to reach more autonomy, since aircraft recycling remains a complex process because of the different alloying elements such as titanium, cobalt and chromium."The recycling is not structured… it is very difficult to mix alloy; we need to start from the beginning," he said. "Another aspect we have to look at is to reduce waste in the production process," he added.

At the same time, reducing aircraft weight as well as reducing the use of raw materials in the aircraft are also important aspects for the industry moving forward, he added.

By Cristina Belda