On 29 March 2020, Spain's president Pedro Sánchez announced that the mineral extractive industries must shut down the next day as part of a COVID-19 pandemic-induced national lockdown.
"It was a completely improvised and wrong decision. We knew that shutting down the industries would stop everything in daily life," remembers Luaces Frades. "The day after, I had the opportunity to discuss this decision with most of the directors of industry of each of Spain's 17 regions. I stressed the mineral extractives industries' link to food and pharmaceutical supply, to our hospitals, and to agricultural production. In less than three days, our industries were reopened. This meant that the impact was bearable."
Luaces Frades says this swift action to avert massive upheaval to Spanish daily life was made possible by the united industry response to potentially very harmful government policy. As well as being director general of ANEFA and FdA, for whom he has worked for 27 years, Luaces Frades is director general of PRIMIGEA (Spanish Confederation of Mineral Raw Materials Industries), secretary-general of COMINROC (Spanish Confederation of Extractive Industries of Rocks and Industrial Minerals), and honorary director general of FIPA (Ibero-American Federation of Aggregates Producers).
"Our organisations represent 100% of the Spanish aggregates industry, but also 100% of all the country's extractive industries, including the mining industry. This allows us and the associations I represent to speak with one pre-agreed voice. It means you are immediately received and listened to by national and state governments," he explains.
"We have been able to explain to the main political parties and relevant national and regional government ministers that we need a roadmap for the raw materials industries. There are roadmaps for green energy, green buildings, energy storage, biodiversity and many other issues. We need a roadmap for our extractive industries that makes sure that raw materials are available to deliver all the others. We must be included in a long-term strategy. Our roadmap is drafted, and we are expecting it to be published by early 2022. It will help to change the perception of our industry and stress its importance to Spanish citizens."
Formed respectively in 1977 and 2007, ANEFA and FdA have 600 member companies who work across a combined 750 aggregates production sites. So how do Luaces Frades, ANEFA and FdA see the current health of the Spanish aggregates sector?
"We were producing close to 500 million tonnes of aggregates a year until 2007. An abnormal and extraordinary amount, but it was what our client sectors needed, and our sectoral obligation to provide it. There was a significant drop in production after the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and by 2014 production was down to less than 103.5 million tonnes – a 78.68% drop compared to 2006. There has been a very slow recovery since 2014, and before the pandemic, in 2019, we produced 136.5 million tonnes. That means we are still very far away from 2006 production levels, levels which will not come back. I think getting to 200-250 million tonnes a year is our most realistic and reasonable scenario given EU consumption patterns."
Luaces Frades says that he has been "very active" within UEPG for 26 years. He chairs several of the association's working groups, task forces and the health and safety committee, allowing him to keep very close watch on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across the whole of the European aggregates industry. "Aggregates production in March and April 2020 was very complex across Europe, and full-year production predictions were very bad, but by the end of 2020, production was only down by just under 10% in Spain, with a great variation in the other EU countries. Before the pandemic, we expected Spanish aggregates industry growth of 5-10% in 2020.
"As an industry, we developed a COVID-19 working protocol by the end of March last year. ANEFA and FdA led on this and was supported by mining association colleagues. UEPG also produced and disseminated a COVID-19 protocol. The protocol guaranteed that industry workers would remain healthy and as safe as possible during the pandemic, with a minor impact in the activity. And that goal was achieved.
"This year aggregates production is getting much better, and we expect it to reach 2019 levels. There is also a lot of industry optimism as there are many transport projects, city government water management works and building insulation for energy efficiency and wider climate management projects that will require a lot of aggregates.”
Despite such optimism, Luaces Frades notes that Spain's current 2.5 tonnes of aggregates production per capita is less than half the UEPG-member country average. He believes the current Spanish level of aggregates demand is not enough to persuade many aggregates producers to accelerate their investments in modern machinery, with productivity and efficiency-enhancing latest technology and lower carbon emissions.
"There is also no clear strategy from global aggregates players for investing in Spanish production. Some of them currently see other markets as much more interesting, like Africa and Asia. It's changed the structure of the Spanish aggregates industry. Before the global financial crisis, 25% of production in Spain was in the hands of big global groups. Since then, their market share has been reducing. And they are not there in some Spanish regional markets. This is giving freedom to industry SMEs [small and medium enterprises]. When the big industry players are strong in a country, they can act as leaders when it comes to things like tackling climate change."
Luaces Frades says the European Green Deal, a set of policy initiatives by the European Commission with the overarching aim of making Europe climate neutral in 2050, is "setting the foundation for a big change in the Spanish and European aggregates industry."
"All the pieces of legislation and policies around this are, at most, only three years old and still in progress, so the industry and its associations are still analysing them and working out how to manage their impact while getting companies to move in the right direction. Undoubtedly, the Spanish and European aggregates industry will be changed in the next ten years by the Green Deal, and climate-change challenges in general.
"As SMEs, most companies do not have the resources to make the quick change that the EU and national authorities are expecting. You need a lot of investment. It's the same in other industries. There is a lot of asking for subsidies and, more importantly, for the setting of reasonable, rather than stringent, targets. One target for Spanish and other European country aggregates producers could be improving their energy efficiency as a first step. Some of the technology required to meet climate-change targets, like fully electric mobile machinery, are also not readily available to aggregates producers.
"I do fear that the cost of meeting some of the climate change-short term targets, coupled with the awarding of less quarrying permits due to tighter environmental regulations, will mean that some aggregates producers will go out of business.
“UEPG plays an essential role to lead our industry in the contribution to environmental goals on biodiversity, water management, air quality, circular economy, renewable energy, transport, climate-change mitigation and adaptation, as well as socio-economic goals such as health & safety, social progress, technical standards, sustainable finance, and natural capital. "
Luaces Frades says there is also concern that the huge progress made by Spanish and European aggregates producers to enhance biodiversity on their production sites is not fully recognised in Natura 2000. Stretching over 18% of the EU's land area and more than 8% of its marine territory, Natura 2000 is the world's largest coordinated network of protected areas. It offers a haven to Europe's most valuable and threatened species and habitats.
"Natura 2000 has been developed without considering pre-existing sites and the work on biodiversity by aggregates producers. Up to 27% of Spain is covered by Natura 2000. In principle, this is not bad. It is said in EU guidance that aggregates production can be compatible with biodiversity protection. But when you come to local decisions about placing an aggregates production site in Natura 2000, there is a 'no go' principle. In a number of cases, this means you are not allowed to obtain a production renewal permit for your site. This is not new. It has been a problem since the 1990s. But the European Commission has just approved a new Biodiversity 2030 Strategy where they want to enlarge the percentage of European land surface area covered by Natura 2000 to 30%. To achieve the 30%, some countries like Spain, which is near 30%, may need to go to nearly 40% to make up for other European countries with fewer environmental areas of interest. Given that, it will make the problem of securing land for aggregates production bigger.
"The European Union also says it wants 10% of Europe 'highly protected' under Natura 2000. That means more 'no go' areas for industries like ours."
Spain will receive close to €140 billion over the next six years from a €750 billion coronavirus recovery fund that the 27 members of the European Union agreed on in July 2020 following a marathon summit in Brussels. The amount allocated to Spain is equivalent to 11.2% of the country's gross national product (GDP) in 2019, making Spain the second-biggest recipient after Italy. A further up to €18.23 billion in COVID-19 recovery money has been pledged by the Spanish government.
I ask Luaces Frades whether there is any tangible evidence that the initial distribution of these funds is assisting the Spanish aggregates industry? "We are still waiting for political decisions and the arrival of most of the European money. Despite this, people in the industry are optimistic about the opportunities for aggregates."
There has been much debate in the UK and other European countries about how to attract a younger generation of workers into the continent's aggregates and wider mineral extractives sector. Luaces Frades says a similar debate is taking place in Spain and at UEPG level.
"We appear old-fashioned to younger people, with a bad environmental performance image, even though that perception is untrue. The average age of a worker in our industry is growing. We lack younger people, not only in highly technical jobs like mining and quarrying engineers, but also in laboratories, driving machines, operating plants, or administrative roles.
"ANEFA has a training programme for new workers coming on quarry sites, and a chair of Aggregate Technology at the School of Mines of Madrid is training new mining and quarrying engineers. ANEFA is also involved in the creation of a foundation, The Foundation of Mining, Quarrying and Life, which will have a programme to attract new workers into the aggregates and the extractive industries.
"As an industry, we have good, stable, and long-term jobs that are reasonably well paid. If you are operating a loader, for example, you have everything set up like your car. It is a comfortable working environment."
Luaces Frades has a doctorate from the Higher Technical School of Mining Engineers of Oviedo, part of the University of Oviedo in northern Spain, for his 2012-submitted thesis: Strategic Plan of the Aggregates Sector 2012 - 2025. Diagnosis, analysis of scenarios and planning and deployment of the strategy.
I'm keen to discover how many of his thesis's conclusions are still relevant today. "99.9% of them," is Luaces Frades's rapid response. "A lot of big industry players and relevant industry people contributed to my work. Climate change, environment, health and safety, working practices and many other sustainability issues were considered, but the profitability of the aggregates industry was the key focus. If you are not profitable, you cannot spend money and time improving your environmental footprint and other things. The strategic plan was broken up into relevant messages and actions for brochures distributed to industry companies, trade associations, government bodies and the general public.
"I am in the process of updating the strategic plan to cover all the industry developments around the EU's circular economy action plan (CEAP) and the European Green Deal. You also cannot stop looking at health and safety. The updated plan will be called Aggregates 2030. It will be published in May 2022 to coincide with a big aggregates congress attended by 800 industry stakeholders in Oviedo, northern Spain."
Through his work at UEPG, Luaces Frades is coordinating the EU-funded four-year DIGIECOQUARRY project. The project is developing methodologies, technologies and processes for integrated quarry-site digitalisation and automated real-time process control, to be piloted in five EU quarries. It aims to improve health and safety conditions for quarry workers while improving quarry operations' long-term sustainability, including the reduction of their environmental footprint. DIGIECOQUARRY is also looking to increase the quarry industry's competitive edge and secure the economic viability of aggregates activities.
"It is a big project. The European aggregates industry covers 26,000 extraction sites and makes up 80% of all extractive industries' sites. The pilot quarry sites include one hard-rock quarry in Germany, a sand and gravel pit in Italy, a treatment plant for aggregates and construction and demolition waste in France, and two limestone quarries, one in Portugal and one in Spain. The different kinds of sites allow us to cover as much of the European aggregates industry as possible. The final project report will be published in 2025."
Luaces Frades, 56, was born in San Sebastian, in the Basque Country in northern Spain, but moved to Madrid, aged one. Despite a lot of work-based travel, including Europe and wider-world travel with UEPG, the Spanish capital has been his workplace and home ever since.
"Before being named as ANEFA director general, I was working in the technical side of the mineral extractives industry for many years. I have been to 500 or more sites. Saying that, I find you are learning daily. It is the only way to be in the front row of an industry, showing people where to go."
Luaces Frades is married and has two children, a 25-year-old daughter, who has just qualified as a lawyer, and a 21-year-old son, who is pursuing a career as a mining engineer. Luaces Frades's son will be the family's sixth generation of engineers. Luaces Frades smiles as he reveals that when he is advising national and regional government figures on potential changes to Spanish mining and quarrying legislation, it is in the knowledge that his father, also called César, played an important role in drawing it up. "My father, who died in 1996, was one of the few Spanish mining laws drafters in 1973. Fifty years later, I'm working with his laws and trying to improve their implementation."
Away from work, Luaces Frades is very keen on sailing and is the owner and president of a sailing club based on a big lake around an hour's drive from Madrid. He is also a keen squash and paddle tennis player and a big fan of English music, including New Order, Happy Mondays and many other English bands. "I have time to listen to music when I'm travelling with work. I enjoy it a lot. The film 24 Hour Party People [a 2002 British biographical comedy-drama film about Manchester's popular music community from 1976 to 1992, and specifically about Factory Records] is one of the funniest I've seen and features a lot of the music I like."
24/7 is an apt description for Luaces Frades when it comes to the dedication he has shown and continues to show to the Spanish and wider European aggregates industry. It will be interesting to see where his work next takes him.
