South32 recently announced great news: it will be investing more than $2 billion to develop the zinc-lead-silver deposit at its Southern Arizona project site. The Hermosa project, the first to be added to the U.S.’s FAST-41 permitting process, has the potential to be one of the world’s largest zinc producers, and that’s good news for infrastructure.
Zinc is used for galvanizing iron and steel to protect against corrosion, and steel is heavily used across infrastructure, from buildings and bridges to tunnels and rail tracks. There are six billion tons of steel used in the U.S. National Highway system. Zinc plays a role in steel’s durability, and as an important piece of our infrastructure supply chain it is important to source our zinc here in the U.S. at projects like Hermosa.