PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Western Australian government is hoping to attract investors to its planned precursor cathode active materials (pCAM) hub, in Kwinana, with Minister for Mines, Petroleum and Energy Bill Johnston lauding the benefits of investing in the state.

Speaking at the second day of Paydirt’s Battery Minerals conference, in Perth, Johnston said that the government was currently in discussions with a range of global manufacturers in the pCam space through the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia.

Johnston told delegates that Western Australia offered a range of benefits to potential pCAM investors, including greater supply chain security, given the opportunity for co-location integration with suppliers of process material inputs.

“We think we have the industrial ecosystem and support to see a success for an investor into this important value adding opportunity. We're close to market and we have a history of being able to support investment and returns to those investors.

“I remind everybody that we have a specific incentive package for a precursor plant at the Kwinana industrial estate. And we would very much like to talk to any investor in that space. Indeed, if you've got a project that you think would be better in the precursor chemical space, not at Kwinana, we'd also be very happy to discuss that with you,” the Minister said.

Johnston pointed out that the Western Australian government had a long history of working with industry in order to keep projects operating, regardless of the commodity.

“We have that demonstrated capability of working with international investors over a long period of time for these long-lived investments. We also believe that there's a lot of opportunity for collaboration.”

“Investors in our state will be able to have a strong return on capital and match the return that they would get in any other jurisdiction. We want to partner with industry to take advantage of these unique opportunities that we believe that we can be a strong alternative supply chain compared to other operations and that there's a strong business case for those investments,” Johnston said.