Australia hands out critical minerals grants

Northern Minerals

18/05/2023 06:25

MELBOURNE, May 18 (Reuters) - Australia has rolled out a
series of grants to critical minerals companies hoping to speed
up development of a battery chemical industry and will soon
announce details of a national industry strategy, its resources
minister said on Thursday.    
    Australia is pushing to reap more value from its mineral
wealth and become a leading supplier of battery chemicals. It
already supplies around half of the world's lithium and is rich
in other minerals critical to the energy transition like rare
earths, nickel, manganese and graphite.
    The total A$50 million ($34 million) in grants will help
develop the next stage of processing for batteries and advanced
manufacturing for aerospace, medical, energy and defence
applications, Resources Minister Madeleine King said.  
    "The grants will support Australia’s new Critical Minerals
Strategy, to be released shortly and which will outline how
Australia can capture the significant opportunity of growing its
critical minerals processing sector," King said in a statement.
    Market participants are keenly awaiting Australia's critical
minerals strategy as other jurisdictions such as Canada, the
European Union and the U.S. rush to win market share in a
processing industry expected to be worth $1 trillion by 2025.   
  
    Australia awarded seven companies grants of around A$5
million each and smaller grants to six others.
    "While we celebrate the support, our view is the government
needs to step up its efforts if it wants Australia to be a
cornerstone in metal supply for the energy transition," said
analyst Tim Hoff of broker Canaccord.
    "It's a good start, but to put it in context China has
invested $29 billion in its supply chain for batteries and clean
tech."
    Grant winners included Australia Energy Storage Solutions
which is setting up Australia's first precursor cathode active
materials (PCAM) manufacturing plant in Western Australia.
    PCAM, in which Australia has identified a competitive edge,
is created from mixtures of battery chemicals in the step
immediately before battery cell production. 
    IGO Ltd  IGO.AX  won a grant to support its plans to produce
nickel-cobalt-manganese PCAM, while gold producer Evolution
Mining Ltd  EVN.AX  was given funds for a project to retrieve
cobalt from mine waste.
    Other grant winners included graphite producers
International Graphite Ltd  IG6.AX  and Ecograf  EGR.AX  and  
rare earths developers Northern Minerals  NTU.AX  and Australian
Strategic Minerals  ASM.AX .
           
($1 = 1.4743 Australian dollars)

 (Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Sonali Paul)
 ((melanie.burton@thomsonreuters.com Twitter: @MelanieMetals;
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