Media release – Madeleine King, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, 20 June 2023

Seizing the opportunities for Australia’s critical minerals

Australia’s new Critical Minerals Strategy sets out a vision to grow our critical minerals wealth, create Australian jobs in mining and manufacturing, strengthen global clean energy supply chains, and support the world to achieve net zero emissions.

The path to net zero runs through the resources sector.

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King has released the new strategy to make Australia a globally significant producer of raw and processed critical minerals and boost economic opportunities for all Australians, including First Nations people and regional communities.

The strategy will be an enduring framework to guide future Government policy decisions to maximise the national benefits of Australia’s internationally significant critical minerals endowments.

As one of the first policy decisions under the strategy, the Government will target $500 million of new investment into critical minerals projects, via the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

The strategy will also establish a process to update the critical minerals list.

Minister King said the strategy makes it clear that Australia can play a crucial role in delivering the processed minerals the world needs for a clean energy future, building on a rich geological endowment and record as a reliable exporter of energy and resources.

“The new Critical Minerals Strategy outlines the enormous opportunity to develop the sector and new downstream industries which will support Australia’s economy and global efforts to lower emissions for decades to come,” Minister King said.

“While the potential is great, so too are the challenges. The strategy makes it clear our natural minerals endowment provides a foot in the door, but we must do more to create Australian jobs and capitalise on this unique opportunity.”

The decision builds on the Government’s wider suite of policies to support the sector, including finance through the Critical Minerals Facility and National Reconstruction Fund, investments in research and development, and grants to help develop early- to mid-stage critical minerals projects.

Independent modelling has found increasing exports of critical minerals and energy-transition minerals could create more than 115,000 new jobs and add $71.2 billion to GDP by 2040.

However, the number of jobs could increase by 262,600, and the increase in GDP strengthen to $133.5 billion by 2040 if Australia builds downstream refining and processing capability and secures a greater share of trade and investment.

Australia is the world’s largest producer of lithium, the third largest producer of cobalt and fourth largest producer of rare earths. Australia also produces significant amounts of metals such as aluminium, nickel and copper, which combined with critical minerals, are crucial for low-emissions technology such as electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines.

Critical minerals are also crucial components for medical technologies and defence applications.

International competition for investment in critical minerals is already intense, with incentives announced by the United States and European Union designed to boost investment to diversify supply chains and to decarbonise their economies.

The Australian Government is also working with industry and international partners to help Australian projects link to emerging markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, India, the European Union and its member states.

The strategy highlights six focus areas:

  • Developing strategically important projects, with targeted support
  • Attracting investment and building international partnerships, to optimise trade and investment settings for priority technologies
  • First Nations engagement and benefit sharing, to strengthen engagement and partnership with First Nations people and communities, and to improve equity and investment opportunities for First Nations interests
  • Promoting Australia as a world leader in environmental and social governance (ESG) standards
  • Unlocking investment in enabling infrastructure and services
  • Growing a skilled workforce.

The strategy will involve collaboration with state and territory governments, and will work alongside the Government’s key agenda items including:

The new Critical Minerals Strategy 2023-2030 is available on the Critical Minerals website.

Media release – Nyrstar, 20 June 2023

NYRSTAR WELCOMES AUSTRALIA’S CRITICAL MINERALS STRATEGY

Nyrstar, a global multi-metals business employing more than 1300 Australians in South Australia and Tasmania, today welcomed the release of Australia’s new Critical Minerals Strategy, emphasising the importance of swift recognition of zinc’s contribution to achieving Australia’s critical minerals vision.

The Government’s emphasis on strengthening Australia’s processing of critical minerals and the priority given to updating the existing Critical Minerals List to take into account global strategic changes, represents significant progress in securing Australia’s energy transition.

Additionally, recognition that critical minerals industries may need transitional support to deliver metals needed for Australia’s low carbon future is timely.

Earlier this month, Nyrstar released a white paper highlighting the significant impact that renewable energy growth was having on international markets for metals, and the unique opportunity this presented Australia to increase its processing of strategic metals and become a global leader in critical minerals.

Nyrstar’s Co-CEO, Dale Webb, said that “the world is seeing a disruption in traditional markets for commodities like we have not seen before. Tackling disruption requires a different approach and this is what we have seen with the Critical Minerals Strategy’s new and welcome emphasis on processing as a key part of Australia’s critical minerals endeavour.

“A step-change in the growth of critical minerals and metals processing would be significant in ensuring Australia moves beyond a traditional extract and export approach to resources. Targeted support to expand existing infrastructure and modernise our metals processing can support the stability of supply of minerals and metals critical to the production of low emissions technologies, and at the same time deliver greater economic benefit from the extraction of Australia’s resources,” he said.

The company endorsed the establishment of a process to update Australia’s Critical Minerals List that was identified as a key action in the Critical Minerals Strategy.

Nyrstar’s recent white paper indicated that Australia would benefit from significant growth in demand for metals driven by low emissions technologies by acting quickly to add zinc and other industrial metals to a critical minerals list as has happened in the US, Canada and Korea. Research referenced in the whitepaper showed that by 2030, annual global demand for zinc will grow by 20 percent from where it is today.

“A review of Australia’s Critical Minerals List is timely. And the focus on updating the List to take into account global strategic changes is important as it will allow Australia to ensure alignment with key allies and geopolitical changes,” said Mr Webb.

“Australia needs to go beyond investing in the supply of traditional battery materials and explore the full range of renewable energy technologies and the type and volume of minerals and metals that their growth will demand. Zinc is one of those metals that is playing an increasingly important role in the world because of its requirement in the development of renewable energy technologies and its ability to unlock other critical minerals like germanium and indium.

“We look forward to providing input into the review of Australia’s Critical Minerals List. But Australia must move quickly as key metals central to delivering the growth in renewable energy are today being drawn down at increasing pace, while supply is becoming more and more concentrated in just a few countries.”

lithium