Soren Tang Sorensen’s Post

I’m looking forward to moderating a panel on “Building national and European spectrum roadmaps beyond 5G”, at the European 5G Conference in Brussels next week. https://5gconference.eu/

Airport slot reform is back on the agenda in European Union countries and the UK. This is a topic I first worked on nearly 20 years ago. Over the years, economists have put forward many ideas to promote more efficient allocation - including considered use of auctions - but to date not much has changed. In this short article, co-authored by NERA’s Auctions and Transport practices, we ask whether this could be about to change.

Congratulations to our client, the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources on completing a third successful Licensing Round for mining exploration licences. This has been a two-year project for our team at NERA Economic Consulting, advising on the design and implementation of the award processes, including the first use of a multi-round auction to award a mining exploration license in Saudi Arabia. It has been a pleasure to work as part of an inter-disciplinary team, including experts from Oliver Wyman, Squire Patton Boggs and SRK Consulting. A special shout out to the Ministry’s Abdulrahman AlBelushi and Ahmed Alaqeel for leading a large and diverse team in a project breaking new ground in the Kingdom, and to my colleague Yasmine Frizlen for her work coordinating across our consortium. The three Licensing Rounds were as follows: The first award for the Khnaiguyah Mining License took place in September 2022. Three consortia qualified to compete for the licence in a multiple round, ascending price auction that identified the single winner, the Ajilan & Moxico consortium. The second award of a mining exploration license for the Umm Ad Damar site took place in October 2022. This used a stream-lined award process, with the Ma’aden and Barrick consortium winning the licence. A third/fourth license for the Muhaddad and the Ar Ridaniyah sites were awarded to Ma’aden in September 2023. This contest generated a commitment to invest ~4m USD in community initiatives across the two sites.

I'm looking forward to chairing a Policy Roundtable on 'Licencing approaches in the mmWave frequencies – is there a need for a rethink?'. This will take place at the 5G Conference in Brussels https://5gconference.eu/

Some thoughts on Germany's plans to #auction 10 GW of #offshorewind sites in 2023, by my colleague Dominik Huebler and I.