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AUST Front Page Friday:
Rare earths gateway to next boom
Jim Chalmers has outlined his vision for a foreign investment boom in critical mineral industries to seize the “opportunity of the century” and prevent Beijing from controlling the global tech supply chains of the future.
Speaking at The Australian-PwC critical minerals summit in Sydney on Friday, the Treasurer will warn that Australia must be “clear-eyed about the fact that more and more critical minerals will become a locus of geo-economic competition”.
Dr Chalmers will warn that countries must avoid the pitfalls of a concentrated global market.
China currently dominates the mining of rare earths, tech supply chains from start to finish and the processing of lithium, despite Australia being the world’s largest producer of the mineral.
“In 2022, you don’t need to look that far back or that far forward to appreciate the challenges and risks that such concentration can pose,” Dr Chalmers will say. “This kind of concentration creates supply chains that are especially vulnerable to disruption – with economic consequences that are far-reaching and deeply-felt.
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In a pitch to global investors to help Australia fast-track the mining and processing of critical minerals, Dr Chalmers will say: “Our international friends need to rely on someone, so let’s have them relying on us.” Australia is the largest global producer of lithium, third largest producer of cobalt, and fourth largest producer of rare earths. It supplies about 55 per cent of the world’s lithium.
At last week’s G20 summit in Bali, Dr Chalmers said he and Anthony Albanese were repeatedly asked by world leaders about “Australian lithium” amid a global net zero emissions scramble to source minerals for batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels, phones, fighter jets, MRI scanners and satellites.……
…….Resources Minister Madeleine King will tell the summit that developing a world-leading critical minerals industry must become a “national mission akin to the foundation of our iron ore industry in the 1950s and our LNG export industry in the 1990s”.
“While companies like Japan’s Mitsui purchased some of the first iron ore exports from the Pilbara in the late 1950s, now in 2022 these companies want to work with us again as we confront the challenge of building a new industry and supply chains around critical minerals,” Ms King will say.
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