Australia battery metals players eye S.Korea market prospects (updated)
14/12/2021 08:10
(Recasts, writes through)
By Byron Kaye
SYDNEY, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The heads of Australian battery
metals firms emerged from meetings with South Korea's president
in Sydney on Tuesday saying they hope to out-muscle China and
become a key supplier to Korean companies developing batteries
for electric vehicles.
The aspiring metals miners met President Moon Jae-in during
a visit in which Seoul and Canberra agreed to ensure supplies of
Australian critical minerals exports for South Korea's tech
sector.
"Customers want to know where cobalt, indeed all their
metals, are coming from and be given assurance it's not coming
from somewhere that's unsustainable," said Joe Kaderavek, head
of cobalt developer Cobalt Blue Holdings Ltd COB.AX , after
meeting Moon.
"China's been unable to give those assurances so it's time
to have a new supply chain."
Stephen Grocott, managing director of Queensland Pacific
Metals Ltd QPM.AX , which has offtake agreements for nickel and
cobalt from South Korea's POSCO 005490.KS and LG Chem Ltd
051910.KS , said Australian producers hoped to meet
environmental credentials demanded by battery customers.
"China's ESG (environmental, social and governance)
credentials are slowly improving but they've got a long way to
go, and frankly I struggle to see how Indonesian-Chinese
production can go into the Western world and still meet customer
and consumer expectations," he said.
Western allies have moved to reduce their dependence on
China amid heightened concern about Beijing's control over the
critical minerals sector.
South Korea needs critical mineral supplies, having pledged
to become a battery manufacturing powerhouse by 2030 as part of
a plan to be carbon-neutral by 2050. The country controls a
third of the $46 billion market for electric vehicle batteries.
Australia supplies 40% of South Korea's critical mineral
imports, which are crucial for many of the components needed to
drive the world's economies to net zero emissions.
Rare earths miner Australian Strategic Materials Ltd
ASM.AX , which also attended the meeting with Moon, said it
signed a cooperation deal with a South Korean government mining
agency to supply critical minerals and metals.
(Reporting by Byron Kaye in Sydney and Sameer Manekar in
Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Kenneth Maxwell)
((byron.kaye@thomsonreuters.com; +612 9171 7541; @byronkaye;))